Victoria Hospital: inspectors issue follow-up report after raising ‘serious concerns’

The follow-up came after Healthcare Improvement Scotland’s first inspection in July-August 2023 raised “serious concerns” about the condition of the hospital’s Phase One building, and resulted in a string of requirements it wanted to see addressed.

Inspectors returned in December and left much happier at what they saw - but flagged some areas for further attention.

They spoke with staff and patients, inspected wards, watched medical team interacting with patients - such as at meal times - and accessed health records and reports. The feedback they got was largely positive.

Donna Maclean, chief inspector, Said: “Patients and relatives were complimentary about their care and the staff providing it. The areas inspected were calm and well-led with hospital teams working together to provide compassionate care.

“The majority of staff we spoke with described Victoria Hospital as a good place to work, with a supportive and visible senior management team.”

While the follow-up inspection resulted in nine areas of good practice, it also included one recommendation and 12 requirements.

A requirement means the hospital has not met the required standards and the inspection team is concerned about the impact this has on patients using the hospital or service. It expects all requirements to be addressed, and NHS Fife has improvement action plan in response.

Inspectors want to see further improvement in relation to maintaining patient dignity, hand hygiene, patient documentation, fire training compliance, the safe storage of cleaning products, and the safe management of waste.

They also acknowledged the improvement work on-going at the hospital and noted: “At the time of this follow-up inspection, Victoria Hospital was experiencing a range of pressures, including increased patient numbers, reduced staff availability and high acuity of patients.”

Despite the pressures, inspectors found “an open and supportive culture with senior hospital managers displaying a good oversight of both clinical and wider system pressures” and patients and relatives were complimentary about their care.

“Despite increased hospital capacity, the areas inspected were calm and well led with hospital teams working together to provide compassionate care. The majority of staff we spoke with described Victoria Hospital as a good place to work with a supportive and visible senior management team.”

Inspectors also visited A&E which it described as “calm and well led, with hospital teams working together to provide responsive, compassionate care. “Patients and families spoke highly of the care received and staff stated they would recommend Victoria Hospital as a good place to work,” they said.

While waiting times were longer than the national target sets out staff were calm and the department was well organised with care being coordinated safely - “staff were seen to be working hard to ensure patient safety.”

On their first day, inspectors noted the longest time to first assessment by a clinician was 90 minutes and there were no ambulances waiting to handover patients. On day two of our inspection there were three ambulances waiting, with an average waiting time of one hour and 20 minutes. Wait times increased slightly on day three with five ambulances waiting and an average time to hand over care of one hour and 30 minutes.