Our CQC ratings

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and adult social care in England. It monitors, inspects and regulates services.

The CQC has rated our Trust as 'requires improvement'.

You can view its reports below, as well as the CQC's individual rating of each of our hospitals.

The latest CQC inspections of our Trust took place in May and July 2023. The CQC inspected the following areas at William Harvey Hospital and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Hospital:

• Urgent and emergency care

• Medical care (including older people’s services)

• Children and young people services.

Inspectors also looked at the management and leadership of the Trust.

We welcome the CQC’s report, which highlights a number of issues that we have been working hard to address. There is and will continue to be, a strong focus on the work required to put the Trust on a more sustainable footing.

We are building a substantive leadership team and are embedding an organisational structure. With this we will ensure staff and services have the stability and support required to meet the needs of our local population going forward.

Since these inspections we have:

• Improved how we work to support our emergency departments and the safety and experience of our patients.

• Continued our building programmes to improve our emergency departments, which are near completion. 

While improvements have been made, there is more for us to do. We must ensure that these positive changes are sustained.

We will also recognise excellent examples of care in our Trust, some of which are described as outstanding practice by the CQC.

We are fully committed to delivering improvements for our patients. We are also committed to demonstrating further progress to the CQC next time they visit.