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Published: 15 October 2009

Care Quality Commission Ratings 1st April 2008 - 31st March 2009

Demand for Papworth’s services increases

Papworth Hospital achieved 58 passes out of 60 categories in the 2008/2009 Annual Health check, conducted by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). We scored top marks in the following categories: Safety and Cleanliness, Standard of Care, and Dignity and Respect. Papworth also achieved full marks in the Good Management and Keeping the Public Healthy categories. Papworth also maintained its ‘excellent’ rating in the Quality of Financial Management section.

One of the two areas within the Quality of Services category in which Papworth was marked down was where a number of patients waited more than 13 weeks for a heart bypass operation.

This is largely due to a substantial increase in the numbers of patients choosing to have their open-heart operation (i.e. bypass and valves) at Papworth Hospital. In fact the number of operations increased by over 14% from 1,754 to 2,004 between 2007 and 2008. This huge increase in just one year required Papworth to recruit dozens of additional skilled nursing staff to train them in this complex area of surgery. Until that task was completed we temporarily reduced the number of operations but gave priority to patients based on their clinical need. Regrettably between April and August 2008 this led to around 100 patients having to wait a little over 13 weeks for their surgery resulting in Papworth’s Annual Health Check rating for 2008/2009 financial year going from Good to Fair in the Quality of Services category.

The number of patients choosing to have their surgery at Papworth continues to grow and projected figures show a further 10% increase on 2008 – a total of 2,200 open heart operations. To accommodate this continuing growth a £3 million extension to our Intensive Care unit, providing seven more beds will open in February 2010.