Lochmaben Cottage Hospital has been recognised for its “Excellence in Care” delivered to patients.
Judith Milligan, senior charge nurse, said the Dumfriesshire hospital’s staff are “ecstatic” after being recognised with the Level 3 Silver Care Assurance Award, which follows a series of unannounced inspections.
Judith said: “This award is in recognition of the huge amount of work and focus the multi disciplinary team has put into delivering high quality care, not just this year, but consistently over the past four years. It’s also great to now see a standard having been developed to specifically review rehabilitation.”
Lochmaben is one of just three community hospitals in the region after Dumfries and Galloway Health and Social Care Partnership decided recently not to re-open Moffat, Thornhill, Newton Stewart and Kirkcudbright to inpatient care.
The team have been praised by South Scotland MSP Colin Smyth, who said: “I would like to congratulate the amazing staff at Lochmaben Hospital for this fantastic achievement. “The team puts in a huge amount of work to deliver such brilliant care to those needing it and it is testament to their dedication that the hospital has been awarded this Level 3 Silver Care Assurance Award.
“It also just goes to show just how important hospitals like Lochmaben are and especially in the wake of the shameful decision by our Health and Social Care Partnership not to re-open Moffat, Thornhill, Newton Stewart and Kirkcudbright to inpatients.
“It’s so important that we now safeguard our remaining community hospitals and ensure there are no more closures in our region.”
The Excellence in Care framework is a national approach to “develop and improve, integrate and co-ordinate the way nursing and midwifery services are delivered within the Scottish public sector to ensure everyone receives a consistent standard and quality service”.
It is intended “to ensure that people who use services within NHS Scotland can have the confidence that no matter where they are cared for, they will consistently receive high quality nursing care delivered in a compassionate way by confident and competent nurses and midwives”.