Outstanding: Health trust chief’s pride at top rating for Sutton's Kings’ Mill Hospital

Richard Mitchell said it was ‘fantastic’ to see the trust scoring well in all areas but ‘particularly proud’ to see the hospital in Sutton-in-Ashfield get the ‘outstanding’ rating – making it the only hospital in the East Midlands to achieve the mark.

He said: “We’re delighted, it’s very hard to get an ‘outstanding’ rating and if you look at where King’s Mill was four or five years ago, to be the only hospital that’s gone from ‘inadequate’ to ‘outstanding’, and for that to happen in a relatively short space of time, it really is a huge achievement, for the all our colleagues here, and when I say colleague, I certainly include all our volunteers in that.

“We’re fortunate that we’ve got some wonderful people working at King’s Mill and during what you might call ‘normal’ times, their commitment to safe care and supporting each other is remarkable.

“Obviously, the whole country has gone through some really tough times in the last eight weeks – and those challenges are going to continue for some time to come – and their support for each other and everyone has been fantastic.

“We’ve scored the best in the midlands for staff engagement for the last two years as well and if you look at our finances over that time, you’ll see that we’ve got a rapidly evolving strategy that involved us working closely with health partners and local partners and shows that we’re in a pretty good place.”

Mr Mitchell put the amazing turnaround in King’s Mill’s fortunes down a strong culture of growth together and staff engagement with everyone having a voice and feeling part of the process.

He added: “That might sound a bit management-speak but if you look at our staff ratings, you can see that people do feel involved, do feel engaged and that helps us to focus on recruiting and retaining the right people.

“We have brilliant people in our organisation and they have been able to bring in more wonderful clinical and non-clinical staff and when you do that, you have stability in an organisation and that enables us to focus on a high quality of care to patients.

“I think restrictions on high quality of care are down to the culture you have in an organisation and at King’s Mill and the trust overall, we want all patients to receive the level care we would want our families and friends to receive.

“If my wife or children came to King’s Mill, I’m absolutely clear about the standard of care I would want them to receive and that’s not because I’m the chief executive, it’s because they’re my family, so why would we accept a lesser quality of care for anyone else.

“I accept that we don’t always get it right, but I think increasingly, we do get it right for our patients.

“I also think that we’re an organisation that has consistently improved its communication over the years so that we now feel confident to communicate the good things but are also aware that we can always keep doing more.”

And Mr Mitchell has no intention of resting on his laurels as he looks to not only maintain King’s Mill’s high rating, but also see other elements and hospitals in the trust continue to improve.

“He said: “There are four things in particular we are focused on.

“The first now and for longer is managing Covid-19, so re-instating services but also continuing to care for covid patients.

“The second thing we want to do is consistency in care provision, so continuing to ensure that all patients receive a very high standard of care.

“The third is working on our culture and ensuring that we maintain the culture that as many people as possible feel they are being listened to and can contribute.

“And the fourth aim is working even more closely with partner organisations.

“We’ve done a lot of work over the last few years establishing good relationships with primary care providers, such as GPs, the local authority, Nottinghamshire Health Care Trust and mental health organisations and we see them as essential in continuing to provide good health care for the community for many years to come.”