The Royal Free Hospital

• IN response to your May 16 coverage of our Care Quality Commission inspection, I would like to make it clear to your readers that we take the findings of the report incredibly seriously and have already taken steps to address many of the CQC’s concerns, (Shock report urges Royal Free Hospital to tackle ‘bullying’ among staff, May 16).

There was a huge amount to be proud of in the CQC’s report, where inspectors found a “culture of collaboration, team working and organisational pride” among staff.

Patients said they were treated with kindness, dignity and respect. Out of 108 ratings we received we scored “good” for 89 of those and 19 “requires improvement” and we missed out on a “good” overall rating by a fine margin.

That is not to say we do not recognise there are areas where we have to improve. We absolutely need to ensure that bullying is stamped out and we need to improve our performance against national targets.

Since the CQC inspection took place in December we have carried out a great deal of work to encourage staff to speak out if they experience negative behaviour, including appointing more than 40 “speaking up” champions who staff can share concerns with on a confidential basis.

In addition our recent staff survey shows that bullying and harassment at the Royal Free Hospital is declining, which is against the national trend, although we realise there is more work to do in this area.

This report is an opportunity for us to reflect on what working at this fantastic organisation means for us and I look forward to inviting the inspectors back in the near future to show them just how much progress we have made.

CAROLINE CLARKE
Group Chief Executive
Royal Free London