North Cumbria Integrated Care (NCIC) still ‘requires improvement’ following an inspection from the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

As part of the inspection, the CQC spoke to senior leaders in the organisation and visited A&E departments and medical wards at both the Cumberland Infirmary and West Cumberland Hospital.

Across the trust, the report found that NCIC did not always have enough staff to care for people using services and keep them safe and that not all staff had training in key skills or managed safety well.

But the report also said that staff treated people with compassion and kindness, respected their privacy and dignity, and took account of their individual needs.

The service also planned care to meet the needs of local people and took account of peoples’ individual needs.

The chief nurse at the Cumberland Infirmary, Jill Foster, said improvements were being made across the trust.

“We're very aware of some of the challenges the trust is facing right now but what is pleasing to see is some of the improvements that we have made since the trust was last inspected," she said.

“We had a very challenging period within our emergency department just before and as Covid hit, and the emergency department at CIC was rated as inadequate and for patient safety.

“That rating has gone up to a requires improvement through a lot of hard work, so we're really pleased to see that.”

The report said that staffing levels at the trust were an issue and Jill said that staffing remained a ‘challenge.’

“We're working against a national picture of about 100,000 plus vacancies across the NHS and we're no exception to that shortage.

“We're working really hard to ensure that we can bring the right people in.

“As far as our nursing is concerned, we've got one of the lowest vacancy rates in the country at band 5 level but that takes time for the teams to develop and build together.”

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The CQC said that there are still areas that NCIC can improve on.

“We saw that the services we inspected had largely remained the same as when we last inspected, some areas had made improvements and some still have issues they need to work on,” said Linda Hirst, CQC deputy director of operations in the north.

“We will continue to work with the trust and monitor its progress to make sure that trust leaders and services make improvements going forward.”