To: Healthwatch Havering
Message from Dr Atul Aggarwal, on behalf of Barking and Dagenham, Havering and
Redbridge Clinical Commissioning Groups:
Following the publication today of the Care Quality Commission (CQC) report into the A&E
department at Queen’s Hospital Romford, as chair of Havering Clinical Commissioning
Group and also on behalf of neighbouring CCGs in Barking and Dagenham and Redbridge I
wanted to outline our response to the report.
We absolutely agree with the CQC that immediate action is needed to make urgent
improvements to the quality of care at Queen’s Hospital. Since taking over the responsibility
for commissioning from 1 April 2013, we have put in place a new, robust contract with
Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust and we monitor this
closely through weekly and monthly review meetings. As strong GP commissioners we won’t
hesitate to take appropriate action where we feel it is needed.
Working with the Trust, local authorities, London Ambulance Service (LAS) and other
providers, we have set up a new urgent care board to review urgent and emergency care
services at hospitals and in the community, so people can get the help they need at the right
place and at the right time. By doing this our objective is to relieve some of the pressure on
local A&E departments, especially at Queen’s. We are also:
 Expanding community teams providing crisis response care to reduce hospital
admissions.
 Improving assessment and discharge services to support hospital patients to go
home sooner with the right care and support.
 Improving the quality of intermediate and rehabilitation care services at community
hospitals and at home.
 Establishing multidisciplinary teams with community nurses, doctors and social
services staff working together to provide more effective care for people with long
term conditions.
 Working with the LAS to review the significant rise in ambulance journeys over the
last year.
We are committed to improving the quality of A&E care locally and we will continue to work
closely with the Trust to support them to implement their improvement plan, but we need to
start seeing results because we agree that this situation has been allowed to go on for far
too long.
It is pleasing that inspectors found patients were treated with dignity and respect by staff and
that some improvements have been achieved, but clearly this is not enough. We don’t
underestimate the challenge ahead, but we want local people to experience the care,
treatment and support they have a right to expect.
Dr Atul Aggarwal
Chair, Havering CCG, on behalf of Barking and Dagenham, Havering and Redbridge
CCGs