NURSES at an award winning hospital "took their eye off the ball" and the personal touch with patients suffered, an official review has found.

Staff at Pendle Community Hospital were "upset and demoralised" when they were told there would be a top management review of their work following complaints from health watchdogs.

Burnley Health Trust chiefs swooped on the hospital after receiving a letter of concern from Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale Community Health Council (CHC). Director of nursing Lesley Doherty, her deputy and trust director Pat Steel made unannounced visits to the Nelson hospital, past complaints were reviewed, case notes checked and independent advice sought. They investigated a total of eight complaints, five relating to nursing care.

At the end of the review, Mrs Doherty said the hospital nursing team was given a clean bill of health, providing high quality care with many "exemplary nursing interventions and practices."

But she said there was evidence that the hospital's drive to meet national quality award targets led to care regimes "that could be perceived as somewhat rigid and without the flexibility to meet individual need". Staff themselves, she said, acknowledged they may have taken "their eye off the ball" of patient focused care - but that was no longer the case.

Mrs Doherty says the review provided positive lessons for the whole trust.

At Pendle, the standard of care, enthusiasm and wish to move forward in the best interests of the patients had been the focus.

She added: "As director of nursing I find that patient care is not and has not been compromised, but open communication and patient focus could have been better - it is now."

The review found the number of Pendle hospital complaints were no higher than in any other area of the trust and they had dropped from seven to just one over the last eight months.

Slips, trips and falls were no greater than elsewhere, record keeping was of a higher standard and overall patients and relatives were complimentary to staff.

The hospital, she says, has qualified for the Investors in People award and the Day Hospital was the first to receive the Bronze Award for the Health Promoting Hospital Project, adds Mrs Doherty.

Today Mrs Doherty said there was never any evidence of poor nursing, but the perceived recurrent themes of nursing care complaints raised by the Community Health Council, required a full and open review of standards, a positive quality exercise which would be repeated elsewhere in the trust.

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