East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust

We carried out an announced inspection between 6th and 8th September 2016.

This is the third inspection of this trust. The first in March 2014 led to an overall rating of inadequate and as a consequence the trust was placed into special measures by Monitor. A supporting performance management structure has been placed around the trust including the placement of a Monitor director of improvement. Following our second inspection in July 2015 the trust showed significant signs of improvement and an overall rating of requires improvement applied. We also made the recommendation that the trust remained in special measures as leadership was not substantive and a number of service improvements were not fully embedded in practice.

This inspection was specifically designed to test the requirement for the continued application of special measures to the trust. Prior to inspection we risk assessed all services provided by the trust using national and local data and intelligence we received from a number of sources. That assessment has led us to include four services (emergency care, medical services, maternity and gynaecology and end of life care) in this inspection. The remaining services were not inspected as they had indicated strong improvement at our last inspection and our information review indicated that the level of service seen at our last inspection had been sustained.