St Hugh's Hospital

Updated 24 March 2026

St Hugh’s Hospital is operated by The Healthcare Management Trust and serves the population of North-east Lincolnshire and surrounding areas such as Hull, Goole, Yorkshire, Grimsby and further afield. The onsite facilities include one ward consisting of 24 single rooms and one double room, two laminar flow theatres and eight consulting rooms. The hospital’s other clinical departments include a physiotherapy department, a radiology department with ultrasound and x-ray. The hospital provides surgery and outpatients with diagnostic imaging services.

The hospital provides services to privately insured patients, self-funding individuals and NHS patients who exercise choice through the e- referral system. Staff offer care to adults over 18, covering the full pathway from outpatient consultation and diagnostic imaging into surgical treatment and recovery. The hospital’s endoscopy service ceased in June 2025.

The main service provided by this hospital was surgery. Where our findings on surgery, for example, management arrangements, also apply to other services, we do not repeat the information but cross-refer to the surgery service level report.

At our previous inspection in May 2019, the service was rated as Requires Improvement. We carried out our latest unannounced inspection on 9 and 10 December 2025. During this visit, we assessed 33 quality statements across the safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led domains to inform the overall rating. Our inspection covered the hospital’s three core services: surgery, outpatients, and diagnostic imaging.

Following our inspection of St Hughs hospital, overall ratings have changed from Requires Improvement to Good. In our assessment of the service, we saw significant improvement in the governance and risk structures of the service. The senior leadership team had oversight of the risk across the organization and had systems in place to monitor them.

The diagnostic service had addressed the concerns highlighted in the previous report. We found they were fully compliant with the Ionising Radiation (Medical Exposure) Regulations (IR(ME)R). This UK legislation protected people from harmful radiation by setting rules for employers, referrers, practitioners, and operators involved in medical x-rays and scans.

Updated 23 September 2025

Safe:  

The service had a good learning culture and information was shared across all departments and staff. People were protected and staff understood how to safeguard people. Staff could raise concerns and were listened to. Learning was shared throughout the organisation and across the wider hospital group.

The facilities and equipment were clean, well-maintained and met the needs of people. There were enough staff with the right skills, qualifications, and experience. Staff had appraisals and could access training. This enabled them to meet the ongoing requirements of their patient group.

Effective:  

Staff involved service users when assessing their needs. They reviewed assessments, taking account of people’s communication, personal and health needs. Care was based on latest evidence and good practice. Multidisciplinary team healthcare professionals reviewed patients to ensure they could receive their treatment. Staff made sure people understood their care and treatment, which enabled them to give informed consent. 

 Caring:  

People were treated with kindness and compassion. Staff protected their privacy and dignity. They treated people as individuals and supported their preferences. Staff were welcoming and approached people in a caring way. The service supported staff health and wellbeing through a wellbeing online platform. 

Responsive:  

People were involved in decisions about their care. The service provided information people could understand. The service sought feedback from people and acted on it. The service was easy to access and worked to eliminate discrimination. People received fair and equal care and treatment. 

Well-led:  

Leaders and staff had a shared vision and culture based on listening, learning and trust. Leaders were visible, knowledgeable, and supportive. Staff were given opportunities to develop in their roles. Staff felt supported to give feedback through both leaders and freedom to speak up mechanisms. There was good governance in place which provided assurance on risk and the patient experience. The culture embraced new ideas and encouraged staff contribution.

We assessed the diagnostics service as part of a comprehensive hospital location assessment on 9 and 10 December 2025. This was because the service had not been rated since 2019. We had previously rated it requires improvement overall.

We spoke to five staff members both clinical and non-clinical. All were very positive about working for the service and the hospital overall.

The service worked well with other departments supporting orthopaedic surgery and the outpatients clinic.

At our last inspection, we were not assured the service were compliant to meet all Ionising Radiation (Medical Exposure) Regulations (IRM)(ER). These regulations keep people safe when undergoing treatment which exposes them to radiation. This had since been addressed, and compliance against the regulations were now embedded in the service.

Updated 23 September 2025

Part of the Healthcare Management Trust (HMT), St Hugh's is a non-profit organisation using surpluses to further their charitable mission to provide market leading care solutions to those with complex needs within marginalised and deprived community settings.

As well as private healthcare services, HMT St Hugh's works in collaboration with the NHS to ensure all communities have access to quality healthcare services.

We assessed the outpatients service as part of a comprehensive hospital location assessment on 9 and 10 December 2025. This was due to an aged rating as the service had not been inspected since May 2019. The service had addressed and improved the two requirement notices from our last inspection.

There were no previous breaches.

On this assessment we found the following examples of good practice;

• Since January 2024 outpatient’s department (OPD) staff had an improved coordinated leadership.
• Leads and managers had implemented areas of improvement. For example, they had developed a nurse-led uro-gynaecology service. This had proved to be valuable to people in their area and freed up doctors to see new patients.
• OPD had a staff group involved in developing a Unity framework and associated principles. This supported people who may have dementia, neurodiversity or learning disability needs. This work focussed on making services more accessible to people.
• OPD leads had undertaken quality improvement (QI) plans around cancellations and informed consent. The hospital’s cancellation rates had almost halved within six months.

However, we found areas for improvement;

• OPD had a lack of nursing presence or oversight. Lower grade staff were left to run the department.
• Not all staff told us leaders and managers were visible. Leaders would not always make themselves available when required.
• During our assessment five OPD staff members and one bank staff new starter were below the 90% provider trust target compliance for mandatory training.
• The department had no formal competency suite of skills. Lower grade staff had a lack of training or development opportunities.
• Four of the department’s 16 complaints in the six months before our assessment were categorised as ‘attitude of medical staff’. We could not evidence leads had put any wider measures in place to address these or other common complaint categories.
• Six consultants had a significantly higher percentage of appointments delayed over 45 minutes than the OPD total. We could not ensure leads acted on this information to improve consultant’s performance.

Outpatients was a small proportion of hospital activity. In 2025, the department had 35,677 appointments across all their specialties. The most common outpatient’s speciality was urology. This formed 29% of their year to date (YTD) total.

The hospital’s main service was surgery. Where services are the same, we have reported findings in the surgery section.

We spoke to 34 clinical and non-clinical staff of various grades.

We rated this service as good because it was safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led.

Updated 23 September 2025

We undertook a full assessment of surgery. We assessed against 33 quality statements across safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led. At our last assessment in 2019 the overall rating was requires improvement. Safe was rated requires improvement, effective, caring and responsive were all good. Well led was inadequate.

Since our last inspection the service had made numerous changes. The senior leadership team had changed, and had implemented a robust governance structure. There was reporting to Learn from Patient Safety Events (LPSE). The hospital had introduced a patient safety meeting and there were clear lines of reporting safety incident from the staff in clinical areas to the senior leadership team.

We rated the service as good. The service had made improvements and was no longer in breach of regulations. Staff now assessed and mitigated risks. Care plans and record keeping now guided safe practice. The provider had made improvements to their mandatory training compliance.

Areas for improvement

• The hospital should ensure their percentage of eligible staff who complete basic life support (BLS) training meets the provider trust’s target compliance.