West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust rates highly in CQC’s latest urgent and emergency care survey

The West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust’s (WSFT) emergency department is performing better than most Trusts in the country in several areas of urgent and emergency care, according to the Care Quality Commission’s latest urgent and emergency care survey.

The Trust matched the highest Trust score in England for the availability of help from members of staff while patients were waiting in the emergency department, and also the overall score for waiting times in the emergency department.

Published today (Wednesday, October 23), the survey showed the Trust scoring highly across categories including patient’s respect and dignity, their experience with doctors and nurses, and their overall care and treatment. The Trust performed better than most Trusts in the country in the following areas:

• arrival
• waiting times
• hospital environment and facilities
• leaving A&E.

Helen Beck, chief operating officer at WSFT, said: “We’re really proud of these scores, which show that patients are having a positive, high-quality experience in our emergency department. We have significantly improved from the 2016 survey, and are performing better compared to most other Trusts in the country in a number of areas.

“This is a real credit to the quality care our staff provide. They continue to go the extra mile, despite seeing around a 10% increase in attendances to our emergency department year on year. However, there is always room for improvement, and we want to continue to ensure that all patients have the best experience when they visit our emergency department.”

Compared to the results from the survey conducted in 2016, the Trust has improved in seven categories, and remained stable in the rest.

The survey was conducted in September 2018 and out of all the patients who attended the Trust’s urgent and emergency care services that month, a random sample of patients were selected to complete the survey, with 436 responses received.

For more information about the survey, please visit: www.cqc.org.uk/uecsurvey