HEALTH chiefs have praised the "can-do" attitude of staff that has led to Fairfield Hospital making significant improvements in the care it provides.

The hospital was told it required improvement when it was inspected by health watchdog, the Care Quality Commission (CCG), in 2015.

But after its most recent assessment last autumn inspectors rated the care provided to patients as ‘good’, while some of the areas were rated “outstanding”. The report was released earlier this year.

Achievements include a “significant” fall in the number of patients waiting more than four hours to be seen at A&E, the eradication of patients waiting for 12 hours or longer on trolleys and slashing rates of the c-diff superbug by half.

The latter improvement is one example of solutions came emerging as a direct result of staff coming up with their own ideas of how best to tackle problems.

Steve Taylor, chief officer at Pennine Acute Trust, told members of Bury’s Health and Wellbeing committee that there was a “real success story” to be told from Fairfield – and staff empowerment was central to it.

“The site feels considerably different, people are upbeat, positive and really engaged. It definitely has a feel of “can do” and that’s reflected in what patients are experiencing.

“Nurses are getting letters of thanks now from patients from having a really good experience , it’s really positive and it’s a joy to see.”

And on areas of medical care found to be outstand, Mr Taylor added: “That was fairly unique , probably only five per cent of trusts in the country have a rating of outstanding, that’s something the site is very proud of, particularly given the majority of is general medicine and elderly care. “

Tyrone Roberts, Pennine Acute’s head of nursing for Bury and Rochdale was also part of a new senior leadership team appointed in the wake of the 2015 CQC report.

He said the culture at Fairfield was “very much” still in the target-driven era, but had “absolutely lost staff empowerment” – and a focus was placed on increasing the visibility of the trust’s leaders.

He said: “The first work I turned up on early shift the reaction was more stark than in any organisation I have ever worked in, they were wondering if they should roll the red carpet out and what I was doing there.

Staff had consistently had been discouraged from talking to those in more senior positions.

The approach was less prescriptive implemented by the new leadership team focused more on team work and collaboration

He said: “It was ‘bottom-up’ rather than ‘this is the best practice, go away and do it’, it was ‘how can you implement it in your area’. It’s not a case of one-size fits all.”

“We have created a whole different culture and way of thinking about patient care. We are not working in a culture where everyone blames everyone else, we are working together as a collective.”

Cllr Andrea Simpson, Bury Council’s cabinet member for health and wellbeing said she wanted to pay tribute to staff for the “amazing” work they had done in turning it around.

She added: “Certainly when I visited Pennine Acute the enthusiasm of the staff really shone out for me . The only way you are going to get change is to empower staff to deliver that change.”

And Dr Jeff Shryer was in agreement. He said: “It’s absolutely a success story. I think there are some really powerful lessons to be learned about working together as a team, and also realising how powerful it was to empower staff to make their own decisions.”