Kinvara private hospital Rotherham: Changes ordered as Care Quality Commission rates hospital ‘inadequate’

A report published this week by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) rated Kinvara Hospital, on Clifton Lane, Rotherham, as inadequate overall, as well as for the individual categories of ‘outpatients’ and ‘surgery’. The hospital has stressed it has had ‘zero’ safety incidents or near misses.

Kinvara is an independent hospital owned by The Karri Clinic Ltd, which is registered to provide treatment of disease, disorder or injury; surgical procedures; and diagnostic and screening procedures. It provides a range of elective day-case and in-patient surgery treatments for NHS and other private patients.

The CQC said in its report: “We have used our enforcement powers and served a warning notice on this Registered Provider and a warning notice on the Registered Manager. The warning notices were served under Section 29 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008. The warning notices told the Registered Provider and Registered Manager they were in breach of Regulation 17: Good Governance. The Registered Provider and Registered Manager now have a fixed period of time to make improvements and comply with the regulations. We will undertake further inspection activity to check that the registered provider and registered manager are compliant with the regulations.”

The report follows an unannounced inspection which was carried out at the hospital which took place in September last year. In their published report, the inspectors listed a number of concerns as reasons why it had been rated as inadequate overall.

The report said managers did not ensure all staff completed mandatory and safeguarding training; and clinical and patient environments were not safe, clean, well maintained and fit for purpose.

It described safety checks of emergency equipment as inconsistent and not in accordance with local policy; and prescribing, storage and management of medicines and consumable items was not in accordance with local policy.

It warned the service did not provide care and treatment based on national guidance and evidence-based practice, and managers did not check to make sure staff followed guidance. Staff did not consistently monitor the effectiveness of care and treatment, and the service was not well led, with governance processes failing to ensure that procedures ran smoothly.

It also said the privacy and dignity of patients was not always respected.

But it did say that staff worked well together as a multidisciplinary team, and staff planned patient discharge well and liaised with services that would provide aftercare. Patients' lengths of stay were short. And it rated the hospital as ‘good’ in the category of how responsive it was.

Suzanne Reynolds, chief executive at the hospital, said significant work had been carried out to turn things around.

She said: “We have made significant strides in implementing change and documentation at Kinvara Private Hospital. We recognise there are areas to work on and are focusing on these with the CQC to further improve our service.

“Our steadfast commitment to patient safety is reflected in our excellent record, with zero safety incidents, zero near misses and overwhelmingly positive feedback from patients. We are pleased that our responsive nature to people's needs was rated as 'Good'