The hard work and dedication of teams across the NHS, social care, primary care and community services has been recognised in a series of reports published today by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). 

The review into urgent and emergency care pathways across Lancashire and South Cumbria followed a series of coordinated inspections which took place throughout March and April 2022. It includes a number of positive improvements and developments, with many services being individually well-run,providing safe care and effective treatment to people.

Some further work is needed to reduce pressure on urgent and emergency care in Lancashire and South Cumbria, which has caused people to face lengthy waits for assessment and treatment. 

The CQC’s findings come as part of a series of reviews into urgent and emergency care. These assessments consider how services work together in a geographic area to ensure people receive the right care in the right place at the right time. The review involved over 30 individual inspections across a range of health and social care services in the area covered by the Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care System (ICS). 

Kevin Lavery, chief executive for NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB) said: “Here in Lancashire and South Cumbria, we have greatly valued our involvement in the CQC urgent and emergency care system review and were encouraged to see the CQC’s findings that many of our local services are providing good, safe care and effective treatment. The CQC’s review took place during a time of considerable and ongoing pressures within urgent and emergency care that were being experienced both locally and nationally, resulting from seasonal pressures, the Covid-19 pandemic, and workforce challenges.

“We recognise as a system we need to make improvements and are working closely with the North West Ambulance Service and across the North West to improve NHS 111 performance and have been working across Lancashire and South Cumbria to reduce long waits in our Emergency Departments – these are big challenges we need to tackle together with local authorities, primary care and wider community partners – and we will. 

“Lancashire and South Cumbria health and care partners will continue working together closely to improve the performance of our urgent and emergency care pathways. By working collaboratively as a health and care system we have a real opportunity to make improvements so that local people and communities can receive sustainable, high-quality, safe and effective urgent and emergency care services at the right time and in the right place and every patient’s care journey is as smooth as possible.”

Kevin McGee, chief executive for Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and speaking on behalf of NHS Trusts in Lancashire and South Cumbria, said: “The CQC’s reports for the wider system and individual NHS Trusts highlight some of the excellent partnership work that we do as well as ongoing challenges across the region. 

“The reports are very timely, coming soon after the formation of Lancashire and South Cumbria’s Integrated Care Board. Working collaboratively across the region will be key to addressing the challenges and areas for improvement which the reports have highlighted, including demand for emergency and urgent care, staffing, and patient flow. 

“As ever, I would like to pay tribute to NHS colleagues throughout Lancashire and South Cumbria who continue to do incredible work on a daily basis.”

Sarah O’Brien, chief nursing officer for NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB said: “We are building on our partnerships with Local Authorities to develop new opportunities to work together with our partners including adult social care and community services to enable people to live healthier lives at home which will help to improve our urgent and emergency pathways. We’ll continue to work with general practice and partners such as community pharmacy to look at ways we can improve access to same day appointments and ensure that people are supported to access the right service to get help.” 

“Our staff across NHS, adult social care, community services and the voluntary and community sector have worked incredibly hard through a very challenging time over the past two years – particularly responding to the Covid-19 pandemic and now in a phase of recovery. I would like to thank them all for their hard work and dedication which is clear to see in the CQC inspection reports and for their continued efforts to support our population across Lancashire and South Cumbria.” 

As part of its review, CQC inspected urgent and emergency care and medical care services run by University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust and Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Urgent and emergency care services was also inspected at East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust. At Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust inspectors looked at urgent and emergency care services and medical care, as well as a focused inspection of surgical services. CQC also inspected some local GP surgeries and GP out of hours services, adult social care services, the North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) NHS Trust including NHS 111 and 999, and mental health teams employed by Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust.

You can read the CQC press release in full on the CQC website.