THE recently formed Mid and South Essex NHS Trust that was created to improve health care in the region has failed its first significant test – and been rated by the Care Quality Commission (CQC)as 'requires improvement'.

However, the care provided by the Trust through its hospitals, which includes Basildon Hospital, has been rated as 'good.'

The CQC visited in August and September this year, inspecting urgent and emergency care, medicine, maternity and surgery. They also carried out a "Well Led" inspection.

In the report published today (Wednesday, 1 December) they praised staff for focusing on the needs of patients and highlighted outstanding practice in the care of COVID-19 patients by the same day emergency care service at Basildon Hospital.

The rating for maternity services at Basildon Hospital also improved – moving from Inadequate to Requires Improvement. We continue to make improvements for our patients and staff through a dedicated improvement plan, which includes close working with our maternity system partners. There is also ongoing recruitment to our maternity team.

Trust Chief Executive Clare Panniker said: "There are some extremely positive findings in this report, and I'd like to thank our extraordinary staff for continuing to provide such high quality care to our patients.

"We merged to become one of the largest Trusts in the country in the middle of a global pandemic, at the most challenging time the NHS has ever known. To be rated as Good for care and for providing effective services is a real achievement."

Inspectors found that there were staffing challenges across the Trust, mandatory training rates were not as high as they should be, and there was a mixed culture across the organisation.

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Clare added: "We are fully aware of the key issues and are continuing to address these. On-going staffing issues have a significant impact and we're working tirelessly to increase permanent staffing levels.

"Mandatory training rates have increased significantly since the inspection, and we have introduced new values and a behavioural framework as part of our culture programme. We now have a range of activities to support the health and well-being of our staff and more than 100 frontline buddies providing peer support.

"We know that some of the issues we are addressing can't be fixed overnight, or in isolation, but we are an improving organisation and are working as a healthcare system committed to providing the very best services to the community that we serve."