Legal information

Providing best value for taxpayers and ensuring decisions are taken transparently, are both key principles in the NHS Constitution. We are committed to making the best use of our resources for the benefit of the whole community. We and our staff have a duty to ensure all our dealings are conducted to the highest standards of integrity and that NHS money is used wisely.

The Declarations of Interests Register enables all staff to be open and declare any actual or potential conflict of interest. It is the responsibility of all staff to ensure they are not placed in a position which risks, or appears to risk, conflict between their private interests and their NHS duties.

The Trust will publish the interests declared by its Directors and decision-making staff in declaration registers at The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust – Making Declarations.

Monthly updates of Declarations of Interest from our Board Members can be viewed on our Board of Directors page.

If you have any queries, please contact the Trust Board Secretary on 01902 307999 Ext. 84294.

The National Quality Board’s “National Guidance on Learning from Deaths”, published March 2017, gives a framework for NHS organisations on identifying, reporting, investigating and learning from deaths in care.

The purpose of this document is to provide a framework for The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust with regard to identifying, reporting, investigating and learning from deaths.

OP87 Learning from Deaths Policy (PDF, 1Mb)

Declarations of self-certification sent to NHS Improvement by the Trust:

Self-Certification of G6 (PDF, 155Kb)
Self-Certification of FT4 (PDF, 171Kb)

We are pleased to confirm that we are compliant with the Government’s requirements to eliminate mixed-sex accommodation, except when it is in the patient’s overall best interest or reflects their personal choice.

We have the necessary facilities, resources and culture to ensure that patients who are admitted to our hospitals will only share the room where they sleep with members of the same sex, and that same sex toilets and bathrooms will be close to their bed area. Sharing with members of the opposite sex will only happen when clinically necessary (for example where patients need specialist equipment such as in the Critical Care Unit, and the recovery bay in theatre), or when patients actively choose to share (Renal Dialysis Unit, Rheumatology Unit, Chemotherapy Unit and Paediatrics).

If our care should fall short of the required standard we will report it. We will publish results via the Integrated Quality and Performance report monthly at Trust Board, and Quality Review meetings with commissioners.

In accordance with the Department of Health MRSA Screening — Operational. Guidance 3 (Gateway 13482), we have systems and processes in place to test the effectiveness of our arrangements, and to demonstrate compliance with our policy on MRSA screening.

These processes are designed to assure our Board of Directors and the public that every elective and emergency patient who requires screening is screened for MRSA.

MRSA Compliance Statement (PDF, 734Kb)

The West Midlands Local Resilience Forum (LRF) is a partnership of member agencies, including those defined under the Civil Contingencies Act (CCA) 2004 by responder ‘categories’:

• Category 1 responders are organisations that are directly involved in the response to an emergency. These are subject to a number of civil protection obligations.
• Category 2 responders are those who have a role to play in response but are less directly involved. The Act does not place such stringent duties on these but does require that they share information appropriate to managing emergencies and cooperate fully with the LRF.

The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust is a member of the West Midlands LRF and we are proud to work together with partner agencies to ensure that if an emergency occurs, we are prepared to respond together and minimise any impact.

In the event of an incident, the partnership agencies that form the LRF join forces to:

• Consider the hazards that feature in the West Midlands, assessing the impacts of the risk and providing this information to the public in a Community Risk Register [add anchor link to text below]
• Create plans to help make the risks safer, setting out how we will come together to respond should an emergency happen, and how we can help people get back to normal afterwards
• Ensure our response is coordinated when things do go wrong
• Carry out training and testing to make sure we are ready
• Identify lessons from incidents and exercises, learning as we go along to improve how we respond in the future.

Every Resilience Forum has a Community Risk Register (CRR) which describes risks for the community and assesses how likely they are to lead to an emergency and the potential impact they would have. The register is created through a risk assessment, and the information is used by the LRF to plan and prepare for emergencies that may occur.

The CRR focuses on serious risks that could result in an emergency, defined as:

• An event or situation which threatens serious damage to human welfare in a place in the United Kingdom.
• An event or situation which threatens serious damage to the environment of a place in the United Kingdom.
• War or terrorism which threatens serious damage to the security of the United Kingdom.

Source: Civil Contingencies Act (2004)

The West Midlands CRR puts the national risks in a local context and whilst it doesn’t describe all risk it highlights those which could affect our routine day-to-day lives. View the West Midlands Community Risk Register (PDF, 4Mb)

The potential for national emergencies is determined by Government in its National Risk Register.

Read our Modern Slavery Statement