Oaklands Hospital

Updated 7 February 2024

Oaklands Hospital is operated by Ramsay Health Care UK Operations Limited. The hospital is located in Salford, Greater Manchester and provides a range of elective inpatient and day case surgical procedures for NHS and private fee paying adult patients, including general surgery, orthopaedic surgery, ophthalmology, ear, nose and throat (ENT), cosmetic surgery and bariatric (weight loss) surgery.

The hospital has an inpatient ward with capacity to accommodate 23 patients, 24 hours per day, seven days week. The day case unit consists of a surgical admissions unit with 3 individual bays and a separate day case ward with capacity to accommodate 8 patients in individual pod bays.

The surgical facilities include three operating theatres with laminar flow and a separate endoscopy / minor procedures theatre with a dedicated endoscopy decontamination suite.

The hospital provides a range of outpatient services for adults. The outpatient department has 7 consultation rooms.

The hospital provides a range of diagnostic imaging services such as X-ray, ultrasound and DEXA scanning. Mobile computerised tomography (CT) scans and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are also available on certain weekdays.

Oaklands Hospital has been registered with CQC since December 2010. The hospital director is the current registered manager for the service and has been in place since January 2023.

• The service is registered for the following regulated activities:
• Surgical procedures
• Treatment of disease, disorder or injury
• Family planning
• Diagnostic and screening procedures.

We previously inspected and rated Oaklands Hospital during July 2017. The report was published in December 2017. We rated the hospital as good overall, with a rating of requires improvement for safe and an overall rating of good for surgery and the outpatient and diagnostic services. We identified 6 regulatory breaches relating to Regulation 12 (safe care and treatment) and Regulation 17 (good governance) during the inspection.

We carried out a focussed responsive inspection of the surgical services during April 2021 (report published May 2021). We inspected but did not rate the service. We found the service had addressed the regulatory breaches identified during the previous inspection in July 2017 and no further regulatory breaches were identified during this inspection.

The main service provided by this hospital was surgery. Where our findings on surgery – for example, management arrangements – also apply to other services, we do not repeat the information but cross-refer to the surgery service.

Updated 7 February 2024

Our rating of this location stayed the same. We rated it as good because:

• The service had enough staff to care for patients and keep them safe. Most staff had training in key skills, understood how to protect patients from abuse, and managed safety well. The service controlled infection risk well. Staff assessed risks to patients, acted on them and kept good care records. They managed medicines well. The service managed safety incidents well and learned lessons from them.
• Staff provided good care and treatment, gave patients enough to eat and drink, and gave them pain relief when they needed it. Managers monitored the effectiveness of the service and made sure staff were competent. Staff worked well together for the benefit of patients, advised them on how to lead healthier lives, supported them to make decisions about their care, and had access to good information. Key services were available seven days a week.
• Staff treated patients with compassion and kindness, respected their privacy and dignity, took account of their individual needs, and helped them understand their conditions. They provided emotional support to patients, families and carers.
• The service planned care to meet the needs of local people, took account of patients’ individual needs, and made it easy for people to give feedback.
• Leaders ran services well using reliable information systems and supported staff to develop their skills. Staff understood the service’s vision and values, and how to apply them in their work. Staff felt respected, supported and valued. They were focused on the needs of patients receiving care. Staff were clear about their roles and accountabilities. The service engaged well with patients and the community to plan and manage services and all staff were committed to improving services continually.

However:

In Surgery;

• The proportion of theatre staff that had completed the higher level of adult safeguarding training, health and safety training and moving and handling training was below the hospital’s expected target.
• The surgical services did not achieve national standards for waiting times from referral to treatment. However, the service had actions in place to improve this.

In Outpatients;

• The environment was not designed to meet the need of patients living with dementia or learning disabilities.

In Diagnostic imaging;

• The environment was not designed to meet the need of patients living with dementia or learning disabilities.
• The existing changing facilities in the waiting area were insufficient to maintain the privacy and dignity of patients and patients had to change in the room where they were receiving their scan, if necessary.
• The waiting environment was not large enough to accommodate a number of patients with mobility issues.
• The waiting times from referral to treatment and reporting times for images were not in line with national standards. However, the service had action plans in place to improve this.

Updated 7 February 2024

Medical care is a small proportion of hospital activity. We inspected medical care because the hospital provides some endoscopy procedures. The main service provided at the hospital was surgery. Where arrangements were the same, we have reported findings in the surgery section.

We inspected but did not rate this service because we did not have sufficient evidence to rate medical care at this service.

Updated 7 February 2024

Diagnostic imaging is a small proportion of hospital activity. The main service was surgery. Where arrangements were the same, we have reported findings in the surgery section.

We rated this service as good because it was safe, caring, responsive and well-led. We inspect but do not rate effective for diagnostic imaging.

Updated 7 February 2024

Outpatients is a small proportion of hospital activity. The main service was surgery. Where arrangements were the same, we have reported findings in the surgery section.

We rated this service as good because it was safe, caring, responsive and well-led. We inspect but do not rate effective for outpatients.

Updated 7 February 2024

The main service provided by this hospital was surgery. Where our findings on surgery – for example, management arrangements – also apply to other services, we do not repeat the information but cross-refer to the surgery service.

We rated this service as good because it was safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led.