DESPITE the problems encountered at four local hospitals, patients are treated with care, commitment and compassion.

That is the finding of a report from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) watchdog published today.

Inspectors spent 12 days in February and March visiting Fairfield, North Manchester and Royal Oldham hospitals as well as Rochdale Infirmary – all managed by Pennine Acute Hospitals Trust.

Though they gave the CQC the worst possible rating of ‘inadequate’ overall, inspectors gave it a ‘good’ rating – the second best possible – for care.

You can read the trust's full response to the report - and three other articles about the inspection - in separate news stories elsewhere on this website. 

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Their report says: “Care and treatment was delivered by caring, committed and compassionate staff.

“In the community, end-of-life services we found outstanding care and excellent examples of staff displaying a person-centred and compassionate appropriate to patients’ needs and preferences.

“There was a compassionate approach for patients whose condition or circumstances made them vulnerable, including patients who were living with dementia or who had a learning disability.

“The trust also used a leaf symbol to indicate that a patient was frail and a butterfly symbol to indicate that a patient was at the end of life.

“These discreet symbols alerted staff so that assessments and care plans considered any reasonable adjustments required to meet the patient’s needs.”

The report acknowledges that, when staffing pressures became an issue, they observed “little positive interaction” between staff and patients and at times the interaction was “functional and impersonal.”

Visit cqc.org.uk/provider/RW6 to read the full report.