HAD ENOUGH?:

60% of NHS trusts admit care failings: Self-assessment reveals widespread inability to meet basic standards (John Carvel, July 10, 2006, The Guardian)

Most NHS trusts in England have admitted they are failing to achieve basic standards of safety and quality of care that all patients are entitled to expect, the Guardian can reveal. [...]

Self-assessments by the 570 trusts are showing widespread non-compliance with government guidance to ensure that treatment is safe, effective and well managed.

The most common breaches included:

· Failure to decontaminate reusable medical equipment;

· Lack of systematic control of patient records;

· Inability to conform with national guidelines on diagnosis and treatment;

· Uncertainty about whether staff have taken part in mandatory training. Only a third of trusts claimed to be meeting all the commission's 44 core standards of basic competence. A quarter admitted lapsing on at least four standards and 10 trusts were below par on at least 14 - the yardstick used by the commission for declaring a trust to have failed overall.