A ‘visibly dusty’ hospital emergency department has been told it still needs to improve by a watchdog. <\/p>\n
An unannounced inspection took place at Cumberland Infirmary, in Carslisle, over two days in February, followed by another visit on 18 March.<\/p>\n
The Care Quality Commission (CQC), which subsequently issued a warning notice to the trust in April, said it found some areas of the department were “unclean” and people were facing “lengthy” waits.<\/p>\n
The North Cumbria Integrated care NHS Foundation Trust (NCIC) said it was making improvements to facilities. It added the department, which was originally designed for about 30,000 patients a year, was now seeing 70,000.<\/p>\n
Although the service kept its overall grading of ‘requires improvement’ from 2023, the rating for safety has been lowered from ‘requires improvement’ to ‘inadequate’, while the grading for caring also declined, from ‘good’ to ‘requires improvement’.<\/p>\n
NCIC chief nurse Dr Gill Findley said the trust accepted “fully” the CQC’s findings, but was disappointed. <\/p>\n