Mile End Hospital is located within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and provides a range of inpatient and outpatient services. These include mental health treatment, family planning, termination of pregnancy and rehabilitation services (illness and injury). Mile End Hospital is part of Barts Health NHS Trust.

CQC has inspected Mile End Hospital once since it became part of Barts Health on 1 April 2012. Our most recent inspection was in February 2013 when we visited the care of the elderly and rehabilitation service. We found that the trust was not meeting three of the 16 essential standards – under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2010 and the CQC (Registration) Regulations 2009. We issued three compliance actions and asked the trust to provide us with an action plan as to how they would become compliant. As part of this inspection, we were assessing whether the trust had addressed the shortfalls, as well as taking a broader look at the quality of care and treatment in a number of departments to see if the hospital was safe, effective, caring, responsive to people’s needs and well-led.

Our inspection team included CQC inspectors and analysts, doctors, nurses and patient ‘experts by experience’. We spent one day visiting the Mile End Hospital. We spoke with patients and their relatives, carers and friends and staff. We observed care and inspected the hospital environment and equipment. Prior to the inspection we also spoke with local bodies, such as clinical commissioning groups, local councils and Healthwatch.

We found Mile End Hospital was providing services to older people that were safe and effective. Patients told us they felt safe and were treated with dignity and respect. There were sufficient staff with the appropriate skills to meet people’s needs. We saw people’s care needs were assessed and they received support to eat and drink. The wards were well-led and patient safety and quality monitoring and management were used to improve services to patients using the service.

At this inspection we focused on the care of the elderly and rehabilitation service in Jubilee and Gerry Bennett wards.

Patients’ privacy and dignity were respected. Patients and relatives said they were treated with respect and given choices. One patient said, “staff are very kind and helpful, nothing is too much trouble and almost all of them are smiling.” Another patient commented, “they do their best and I like it here.”

Patients’ views about the quality of care were mixed but mostly positive. Staff said patients received care that met their basic care needs. Due to limited staffing levels, care was mostly task-based rather than personalised to meet the individual needs of patients.

Patients were not always adequately supported to be able to eat and drink in a way that met their individual needs.

Whilst the trust was in the process of recruiting new staff and reviewing staffing levels, current staff numbers were not always sufficient to meet the needs of patients.

There were a variety of ways in which the trust regularly assessed and monitored the quality of service and gathered the views of patients who used the service.

Patients were not protected from the risks of unsafe or inappropriate care and treatment as records relevant to the management of the service were not accurate and fit for purpose.

We did not speak to people who used this service as part of this review. We looked at a random sample of medical records. This was to check that current practice ensured that no treatment for the termination of pregnancy was commenced unless two certificated opinions from doctors had been obtained.