Dudley's Russells Hall Hospital 'in need of improvement'

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) found the accident and emergency department to be busy and overstretched in its report published this morning. It has called on bosses to ensure there are enough staff and beds to ensure patients can be looked after safely.

Inspectors rated the majority of areas looked at, including end of life care, medical care and surgery, as good. The report, which said the hospital trust required improvement overall, said it was confident the areas raised could be addressed by bosses.

Hospital trust chief executive Paula Clark said she was 'disappointed' not to have achieved a good rating overall. The inspection was carried out in March as a follow-up to a review by Sir Bruce Keogh last year.

CQC chief inspector of hospitals, Professor Sir Mike Richards, said: "We saw staff at The Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust have been working hard over the last year to make improvements since the Keogh review, and we saw several areas of very good practice.

"Overall, this trust was found to require improvements in some areas, although we rated it good in terms of caring staff, solid leadership and effective processes.

"My view is that the trust is not far off achieving a rating of good and I have confidence that the leadership of the trust is addressing the issues we have highlighted." He recognised the trust had faced the challenge of increasing patient numbers at its emergency department.

He said: "The trust has given us assurances it is undertaking an ambulatory care pilot scheme to ensure that it can improve the way it meets the needs of patients coming into accident and emergency."

He added: "We will continue to monitor this trust closely and this will include further inspections."

Ms Clark said: "We are pleased that the majority of areas received an overall rating of good and disappointed that the overall CQC rating is 'requires improvement'. It is a credit to our staff that the inspection team found much evidence of excellent practice and that patients see our staff as highly caring, with many examples of staff going the extra mile."

The 687-bed hospital serves around 450,000 people.