Two NHS hospital trusts which provide private healthcare services have been rated as ‘requires improvement’ by the English hospital standards regulator the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust was rated Requires Improvement for being safe, effective, responsive and well-led. It was rated Good for being effective and caring, following the inspection which took place in November and December 2017.
Overall CQC’s rating of the trust has remained the same. The ratings for each of the trust’s acute locations also remained unchanged.
Imperial run services for patients out of each of its three main hospital sites – St Mary’s Hospital,Charing Cross Hospital, and Hammersmith Hospital. All three sites are submitting data to PHIN and are available to search on our website.
England’s Chief Inspector of Hospitals, Professor Ted Baker, said: “There has been some improvement in care at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and the quality of some services are outstanding. However, there is still plenty of scope for the ratings of the trust to improve.
“I hope that before future inspections the trust can make further improvements so that it can achieve an overall rating of Good rather than Requires Improvement.”
Croydon Health Services NHS Trust has also retained its rating of requires improvement following the CQC inspection which took place in October and November 2017.
Inspectors found there had been improvements in some of the services inspected, including surgery which has now improved from Requires Improvement to Good, but further improvements were needed in several areas.
Of Croydon’s latest inspection rating, England’s Chief Inspector of Hospitals, Professor Ted Baker, said: “Croydon Health Service NHS Trust continues to require improvement, however, we did find some areas of outstanding practice including mortuary staff demonstrating a person-centred approach to the care of families and friends following bereavement. They were flexible and considerate and embedded the values of the trust. While there have been some improvements in the quality of care since the last inspection, the trust needs to do more to ensure its services are consistently good.”
The trust delivers private healthcare services to patients from Croydon University Hospital. However, they are yet to begin submitting data to PHIN as required under the Private Healthcare Market Investigation Order 2014 and are not yet available to search on our website.
Further information on both inspections can be found on the CQC website.
– Full inspection report for Croydon Healthcare Services NHS Trust https://www.cqc.org.uk/provider/RJ6
– Full inspection report for Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust https://www.cqc.org.uk/provider/RYJ
