A trust that runs local hospitals including Boston’s Pilgrim Hospital says it has been taken out of special measures for the first time in five years.
It follows the Care Quality Commission report into all United Lincolnshires Hospitals NHS Trust services which was published last month.
While that report gave it the same overall rating of ‘requires improvement’, improvements were enough for it to come out of what is now called the national ‘Recovery Support Programme’ yesterday (Thursday),
It increased its ratings for being effective and well-led from ‘Requires Improvement’ to ‘Good’. The rating around safety and responsiveness remained as ‘Requires Improvement’ and the rating for caring remained as ‘Good’.
Not having enough staff was a key issue brought up in the report for the reasons behind the services that require improvement.
The trust’s overall rating was arrived at by looking at the ratings of all four hospitals within the trust.
Both the Pilgrim and Lincoln required improvement in three out of five key areas. Louth and Grantham hospitals were both rated as ‘Good’ overall in 2018 and were not revisited as a result.
ULHT Chief Executive, Andrew Morgan, said: “We are delighted that the decision has been made to move us out of special measures.
“This is in recognition of the huge amount of work that our amazing staff have done to improve the quality of care for our patients in recent years and the improvement in financial governance and control that we have achieved.
“We are grateful for the intensive support that we have received as part of special measures over the years.
“We know that there is still work to do, but lots of exciting developments are already underway and I am confident that that we will now continue to go from strength to strength.”
