Hospital rating is reduced by a technical hitch (From Echo)

Hospital rating is reduced by a technical hitch

12:40pm Thursday 15th October 2009 in

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BOSSES at Southend Hospital say they are frustrated that a new rating of its quality of services has fallen due to a technical issue.

The annual health check by the Care Quality Commission is published today and rates NHS trusts across the country for their quality of services and financial management.

The hospital scored “excellent” for its financial management for the third year in a row. However, chief executive John Gilham says he and staff are disappointed their efforts and improvements haven’t been recognised as its service quality rating went from excellent in 2007/08 to “good” for 2008/09.

He says this is because of not scoring any points for how deliveries and births are recorded at the hospital.

Also the number of women smoking while pregnant and the numbers who are breastfeeding are below the national targets.

The number of mums-to-be smoking has gone up by two per cent in a year to 15 per cent, while the number of new mums breastfeeding is at 69 per cent, below the national target of 72 per cent.

Mr Gilham said: “We’ve worked pretty hard to get a high level of home deliveries which is good as mothers like to have that choice. Some of our home births weren’t recorded because of a process error, so we missed out on two scoring points.

“It’s disappointing from a staff point of view, but this data is an important national requirement.

“It’s a technical issue and in no way reflects on the quality of the service.”