The West Herts Hospital trust according to the Care Quality Commission Report published on February 28 has been found in dire need of improvement.

Hemel Hempstead MP, Mike Penning, has responded to the Care Quality Commission’s latest report saying the revelation was shocking.

The CQC announced that they had found “a number of improvements were needed, particularly at St Albans City Hospital. As a result, the trust is rated as Requires Improvement.”

Sir Mike said: “This is very disappointing. Yet again, the hardworking frontline staff have been let down by management.

“Out of the five criteria the Trust is rated on, it gets a ‘Requires Improvement’ on four of them.

“Of the three sites – Hemel Hempstead, St Albans and Watford – Hemel and Watford are rated ‘Requires Improvement’ and St Albans in ‘Inadequate’.

“Not impressive whichever way you look at it.”

“Quite simply, people deserve better than this. This is a shocking report from the CQC, but sadly not surprising.

“The management of our local NHS is failing at every level.”

Deputy chief executive Helen Brown of the West Herts Hospital Trust said: “We fully recognise that we are on a long improvement journey, but we have made remarkable progress since coming out of special measures in 2017.

“The latest results show that 10 out of 13 services across our hospitals are rated ‘good’ which includes recognition for strong leadership.

“We are of course hugely disappointed with the ratings for our Minor Injuries Unit and the Urgent Treatment Centre and we immediately implemented effective action plans to address the feedback from inspectors.

“We are confident that the issues raised are easily fixable and residents should still feel confident that they will receive appropriate care from the two services.

“It’s worth noting that the majority of patients who are cared for at St Albans City Hospital are treated by the surgery and outpatients’ teams and these were both rated ‘good’ overall. Similarly, outpatients at Hemel also received a ‘good’ overall rating.”