THE national inspection body for health and care services has dealt a parting blow to SEQOL as they wind up business following an urgent hand over to GWH.

Staff from the Care Quality Commission carried out a focused inspection of SEQOL’s district nursing and podiatry services as a result of concerns they had received.

The organisation is no longer providing health care services and is in the final phase of winding up entirely; the inspection was carried out in advance of the downturn in SEQOL’s fortunes.

It found that improvements were required in the areas of safety and leadership.

Specifically, there were shortfalls in the reporting of incidents with evidence that lessons were not being shared to allow for improvements in community nursing practice.

Inspectors also found that SEQOL lacked the number of suitably skilled nurses in a mix of areas to care appropriately for the patients it was responsible for.

There were deficits in training and education for the adult nursing team, with some staff reporting to inspectors that the training they required was not consistently being delivered.

The report went on to criticise the senior leadership at SEQOL, with staff reporting that while they felt engaged with their immediate supervisors, that was not the case with more senior management.

Inspectors also said that there was “very poor compliance” with the completion of nurses’ yearly appraisals, a lack of supervision and poor one to one support.

While the focus of the report was on the areas in which SEQOL was struggling to meet the standard, the inspectors did find some positives.

They noted that the organisation’s culture was one of commitment to providing a caring and compassionate service and that at a team level, there was a good level of organisation and safeguarding awareness.

A spokesman for the SEQOL board said: “We were particularly pleased to see the CQC noted the caring nature of colleagues and acknowledged our understanding of, and performance in, the areas of safeguarding and duty of candour.

“As we have outlined earlier, SEQOL was funded to carry out the community adult services contract, but not resourced for the over-servicing that this rising demand on the service ultimately required. We are pleased that the report notes some of the initiatives we took to help meet demand, such as the introduction of paramedics.

“The issues raised in the report’s summary were already part of the existing improvement plan we had worked with commissioners to implement throughout 2016, so if we were surprised by the timing we were not surprised at the findings.

“We remain very proud of all colleagues for going the extra mile to help fill the gaps between budget and need.”