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Paediatric orthopaedic review: six-month update

In October 2025, we published the independent Verita report and our action plan, Learning, Accountability and Change.

We shared our first progress update in February 2026 and we remain committed to making meaningful improvements.

We are grateful to patients and families who have shared their experiences with us, and we recognise the importance of continuing to listen and act on what we hear.

Update on action plan

We have continued to make positive progress towards the delivery of Learning, accountability and change action plan, and have delivered the further 13 commitments we aimed to complete by May 2026.

Below, we set out what we have delivered and, importantly, what these changes mean for patients and families.

Better support, oversight and accountability for doctors

What we have delivered

We are strengthening how doctors are supported, managed and reviewed. This includes improving how workloads are understood, introducing clearer guidance for managers, strengthening appraisal processes, and providing a more structured induction programme for new consultants.

What this means for patients and families

Doctors will receive more consistent support, supervision and feedback throughout their careers at CUH. This will help us identify concerns earlier, support safe clinical practice and provide more consistent, high-quality care for patients.

Stronger leadership and clearer responsibility for patient safety

What we have delivered

We have strengthened how senior clinical leaders and the Trust Board oversee quality and safety. This includes leadership development and clearer ways of working between senior medical leaders and clinical teams.

What this means for patients and families

Patient care is being monitored more closely across the Trust, so problems are spotted and dealt with faster, and it’s clear who is responsible for making improvements.

Using data to identify and reduce variation in care

What we have delivered

We have reviewed Trust-level data on patient outcomes to identify where there may be opportunities to improve our services.

What this means for patients and families

We will be better able to identify differences and take action to ensure all patients receive consistently safe, high-quality care.

Improving how clinical teams work together

What we have delivered

We have introduced clearer standards for how multidisciplinary teams (MDTs) work together across the Trust.

What this means for patients and families

Care will be better coordinated, with the right specialists involved in decisions, leading to safer and more consistent treatment.

Focusing on higher-risk and specialist services

What we have delivered

We have reviewed services that provide highly specialised or complex care, to identify any areas where governance or safety arrangements need strengthening. We have also developed a Trust-wide plan to strengthen quality and safety, based on a review by NHS England.

What this means for patients and families

We are paying closer attention to more complex areas of care to make sure all our services are safe, consistent and well-coordinated for patients and families.

Improving culture and how concerns are addressed

What we have delivered

We have taken forward actions to improve culture across the hospital, including promoting a more open and respectful environment and applying a “just and learning” approach to address concerns earlier and more fairly.

What this means for patients and families

Staff are better supported to speak up and address issues quickly. This will help to prevent problems from happening and improve the safety and quality of care for patients.

The final actions set out in the ‘Learning, accountability and change’ action plan are due for completion in October 2026.

Improvements to patient care

We want to share the below update on the steps we are also taking to improve patient safety and care across the hospital and within individual services.

Trauma and Orthopaedics

Our children’s and adults’ Trauma and Orthopaedics teams are continuing to make improvements to the care patients and families receive.

These improvements are based on what patients and families have told us, as well as learning from independent clinical reviews.

  • A detailed review has been carried out looking at how children’s pain is managed after orthopaedic surgery. Learning from this review is being used to improve how pain is assessed, monitored and treated.
  • The Trust is also introducing wider real-time monitoring of pain management across paediatric services so that any issues can be identified and addressed more quickly.
  • A review is underway to improve care for children with neurodisabilities, helping orthopaedic, neurology and community paediatric teams work more closely together and improve coordination of care.
  • The Pavlik harness information leaflet has been updated following feedback from families.
  • We are putting in place the recommendations from the MDT (multi-disciplinary team) review, including a new system to clearly record discussions between different healthcare professionals in each patient’s record.

Our commitment

We know there is more to do. Improving care, rebuilding trust and making sure changes are fully embedded across the organisation will take time and continued effort.

We are committed to listening to patients and families, learning from feedback, and making lasting improvements to the quality and safety of the care we provide.

Six months update event

Continuing to deliver progress on our action plan, listening to your experiences and making real improvements matters to us.

We are holding a session to share how CUH is learning, changing, and acting on feedback, and to update patients and families on our progress.

The session will be led by Nicola Ayton, our Chief Executive, Sue Broster, our Chief Medical Officer, and Lorraine Szeremeta, our Chief Nurse.

This session will be held on Wednesday 3 June from 6pm- 7pm on Microsoft Teams. If you would like to attend, please email us at cuh.communications@nhs.net .

We will send you a link to join the session

Patient Advisory Board (PAB)

Catherine Kimberley, Chair of the Patient Advisory Board, has shared an update as part of this work.

The Board meets every month, with meetings held either in person or online.

The next meeting will take place on:

  • Wednesday 10 June – 10am-11.30am (online)

If you are interested in joining the Patient Advisory Board (PAB) or have any questions, please contact:
cuh.familyliaison@nhs.net

We remain committed to supporting the Patient Advisory Board and hearing from patients and families.

Find out more about the Patient Advisory Board and how to join.

Listening event for children and young people (NYAS)

If you are a parent of a child under 16 who is involved in this review, you will have received an invitation to a listening event for children and young people supported by the National Youth Advocacy Service (NYAS).

NYAS are offering two short online information sessions:

  • Tuesday 2 June, 6:00–6:30pm
  • Wednesday 3 June, 2:00–2:30pm

Following these sessions, an in-person listening event will be held on:

  • Saturday 13 June
  • 10:00am to 2:00pm
  • Meadows Community Centre, Cambridge

This interactive event will use creative activities such as play and graffiti-style art to help children and young people share their thoughts, feelings and experiences.

Families can register with NYAS using the details provided in their invitation.

Oversight of the improvements we are making

To make sure the delivery of our action plan has oversight from our partners, we reported progress to the dedicated Oversight Board on February 11th, which includes representatives from NHS England, the Care Quality Commission, Healthwatch, GMC and the Integrated Care Board alongside CUH Executive and Non-Executive Directors. We will continue to do this as we progress.

Ongoing support for patients and families

We recognise the impact the incident, the publication of the Verita report and the ongoing clinical reviews may have on affected patients and families. Our dedicated Patient and Family Liaison team remains on hand to support you and answer any questions you might have:

Psychological support provided by the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust is available for patients and families should you need it. If you would like an appointment, please email paediatricOrthopaedicreferrals@cpft.nhs.uk or contact the Patient and Family Liaison team who can help.