HEALTH bosses have labelled Colchester General Hospital as ‘inadequate’ after a snap inspection.

It is the latest blow to the crisis-hit Turner Road hospital, which was plunged into special measures in 2013.

A report into the hospital’s accident and emergency unit, published by the Care Quality Commission on Friday, said the evidence on the specific inspection alone would have been enough to warrant enforcement action.

The report found a number of patient safety and dignity issues, as well as problems with staffing levels and the length of time patients were waiting to be treated.

Inspectors also found the department was not always clean and care was not always up to standard, especially around head injuries.

The report said: “The A&E department was not safe because staffing levels for nursing and medical staff were not sufficient to provide safe care to patients.

“The service reported a high number of serious incidents with many having a significant or life changing impact on the patient.

“There was a lack of learning from incidents and no evidence was found or available which demonstrated learning from incidents had taken place to improve care.”

One four cases, inspectors has to escalate the care of patients because they were receiving “inadequate treatment” which “placed them at risk of harm”.

The report added: “The A&E department was not always caring. We had concerns during the inspection with how staff treated patients.

“We observed instances where patients who were very unwell, dying or deceased were not treated with dignity or respect.”

Inspectors did, though, note the unit was “very busy” on the day of the inspection.

During the visit, inspectors heard one doctor tell a dying patient and their family no further treatment would be offered and was heard to say: “Get the patient out of here we need the room.”

Inspectors said: “This was a very disrespectful way to treat a patient who was nearing the end of their life.”

'Report is unbalanced'

HOSPITAL bosses have hit out at CQC inspectors for an “unbalanced” report, which raised significant concerns about patient care.

The trust which runs Colchester General Hospital said it accepted there were cases when care fell below a high standard and has apologised to the patients it let down.

But they say the report is “not balanced” and “does not reflect the unprecedented pressures it was under at the time of the inspection” and it does not reflect the progress made by the trust over the last year.

Dr Lucy Moore, interim Chief Executive of the trust, said: “The examples of poor care that the CQC has identified in its report are unacceptable.

“They do not reflect the standards which we expect to deliver consistently for all our patients, and we have already taken urgent action to address shortfalls.

“However, I am disappointed that the CQC has decided to rate Colchester General Hospital as inadequate following visits to the A&E department and Emergency Assessment Unit.

“While being exceptionally busy can never be an acceptable excuse for providing sub-standard care, it is not unreasonable to point out the inspectors visited at a time of unprecedented demand within the NHS when, frankly, many hospitals like ours were struggling.

“Like many other trusts, we were doing our best to treat more patients and like many other hospitals, we were struggling, but our staff are up for the challenge.”

In November, the trust saw an increase of more than 10 per cent in the number of patients brought in by ambulance compared with the same month the previous year.

In December, there was an increase of more than 40 per cent in the number of patients treated in the Trust’s A&E “majors area” - which is for seriously ill adults who are likely to be admitted to hospital.

Dr Moore added the report refers to how busy the units were 36 times, which is just one reason why she was disappointed the inspection led to an overall downgrade of the hospital from ‘requires improvement’ to ‘inadequate’.

Dr Shane Gordon, chief commissioning officer at the North East Clinical Commissioning Group, added: “We are concerned the report and the change in overall rating of the hospital does not take into account all the progress made over the last period since the hospital went into special measures.

“The rest of the health community are right behind the trust in its journey of improvement.

“I feel somewhat frustrated the CQC process lead them to use mathematics to downgrade the trust rather than taking an overall view of the progress made by the organisation.”