The NHS’s biggest cancer hospital has been downgraded in ratings issued by the care watchdog after staff raised concerns about bullying.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has warned the Christie hospital in Manchester that it “requires improvement” in its leadership and the safety of the care it provides.
The regulator removed the “outstanding” rating that the Christie NHS trust has had for its overall performance since 2016 and demoted it to the lesser “good” rating.
The Christie is the biggest cancer hospital in Europe and is renowned for the quality of its specialist care to patients from Manchester, Cheshire and often other parts of England.
In recent years NHS England and several independent reviews have voiced unease about concerns raised by staff, including by whistleblowers, into what one inquiry called “bullying, harassment and racial prejudice … along with lack of respect at work” and also how the trust handled them.
An external review by NHS England commissioned in 2020 found that current and former Christie staff had reported “instances of inappropriate behaviours and unfair treatment … feeling intimidated … the existence of cliques, [and] the abuse of positional power”.
In a report published on Friday the CQC said “staff told us that some senior leaders were not always visible or approachable”.
It also found that “very senior executives were heavily invested in the promotion and protection of the trust’s reputation. This impacted negatively on some staff; staff did not always feel supported and valued”.
“A minority of staff expressed reservations about raising concerns and others did not always feel listened to,” the report added.
In addition “equality, diversity and inclusion had not been effectively prioritised within the trust in the previous three years”.
However, CQC inspectors singled out for praise the “strong, visible clinical leadership” displayed by Janelle Yorke, the Christie’s chief nurse, and Dr Neil Bayman, its medical director. They also highlighted the chief operating officer Bernie Delahoyde’s “clear strategic leadership”.
However, they received “variable feedback” about other senior leaders.
Ann Ford, the CQC’s director of operations in the north, said: “Staff didn’t always feel supported and valued, with some telling us they felt they couldn’t raise concerns or weren’t listened to when they did.”
While the Christie had made some improvements to its culture, “more work needs to be done to address the issues we identified”.
The CQC also commended several areas of “outstanding practice” at the hospital. It highlighted that the Christie in 2018 became the UK’s first centre providing high energy proton beam therapy, a form of specialised radiotherapy used to treat complex cancers.
The Manchester Academic Health Science Centre also recently awarded three members of Christie staff honorary clinical chairs, in recognition of their contribution to cancer services, research and education.
In a statement Roger Spencer, who has been the trust’s chief executive since 2013, said: “We are pleased that the CQC has rated us good despite the difficulties the NHS has faced over the past few years.
“Demand for cancer services has continued to rise, resulting in us treating more patients than ever before.
“We are working hard to make the improvements that have been highlighted by the CQC, ensuring that all our staff feel supported and valued, and I thank them all for continuing to put patients at the centre of everything we do.”
