The ineffective staffing situation at University Hospital Kerry is severely affecting its capacity to deliver secure and efficient patient care, according to an account by the national health supervisory body. The Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) conducted an sudden inspection of the Kerry-based hospital in January, to review the adherence to 11 countrywide health benchmarks from the National Standards for Safer Better Health.
Inspectors discovered that the hospital displayed a marginal enhancement in compliance with certain national standards. But, considerable failures remained, especially in the areas including good governance, workforce, and risk management support provisions.
Hospital staff at University Hospital Kerry were observed to be well within the guidelines or substantially within limits for four national standards. However, they only partially conformed with five national standards and completely diverged from two of them.
The report stated that while the resourcing of the medical, nursing and midwifery departments had improved, hospital administrators still faced issues in addressing deficits in the departments managing quality, patient safety and health and social care. Staffing issues in the quality and patient safety departments had a major negative impact on the proactive monitoring and continual improvement of hospital services. Meanwhile, key advancements in clinical governance and oversight outside regular hours in the emergency department manifested no progress since the last audit, a factor worrying to Hiqa.
The workforce setup in place at University Hospital Kerry was found to be not entirely efficient in enabling and fostering the delivery of top-notch, safe, and steadfast healthcare in the emergency department and throughout the hospital. Five major risks associated with workforce were listed on the hospital’s corporate risk register. Similar to previous inspections, the number of medical staff in the emergency department was insufficient to ensure the provision of around-the-clock emergency care. Furthermore, inspectors pointed out significant drawbacks related to the clinical governance of the emergency department and supervision of non-consultant hospital doctors outside normal working hours.
The department responsible for quality and patient safety at the hospital is facing significant staffing shortages. This issue has adversely affected their operational capacity to proactively identify, enhance, and capitalise on opportunities to ameliorate healthcare services. The report pointed out a crucial need for “considerable enhancement” in terms of participation from medical, nursing, and midwifery staff in compulsory and fundamental training. Furthermore, inspectors noticed that mechanisms intended to detect and control potential and actual threats tied to the four known areas of harm “weren’t as sturdy, anticipatory, and efficient as they ought to be.”