Kim O’Keeffe, dual chief nursing officer for the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust said in a statement that the CQC had “again recognised the high level of care and compassion provided by our staff but of course we recognise the areas where they said we need to improve”.
She said: “We fully accept the recommendations in the report and took immediate steps to ensure the safety of ambulance handovers and use of treatment escalation spaces, as well as ensuring our teams were fully involved in the changes we have been making.”
She added that there had been a “positive impact from changes our teams have been making across medicine and urgent and emergency care”.
These included a commitment to maximum 45-minute ambulance handovers, with the aim to be within 15 minutes whenever possible.
“We have also opened a new medical rapid assessment and treatment unit and introduced a new way of working across our medical wards, so that we can delivery safer and more timely care for those needing emergency admission,” she said.
The average ambulance handover at the Royal Cornwall Hospital in July was under 39 minutes, a “major improvement, reducing ambulance handover times by over 60% compared to April,” she said.