Oaklands Hospital

On this page

• Overview
• Shared direction and culture
• Capable, compassionate and inclusive leaders
• Freedom to speak up
• Workforce equality, diversity and inclusion
• Governance, management and sustainability
• Partnerships and communities
• Learning, improvement and innovation

We looked for evidence that service leadership, management and governance assured high-quality, person-centred care; supported learning and innovation; and promoted an open, fair culture.

At our last assessment we rated this key question good. At this assessment the rating has remained good. This meant the service was consistently managed and well-led. Leaders and the culture they created promoted high-quality, person-centred care.

The service was well-integrated with its community and leaders were effective, compassionate and capable. Governance arrangements were consistent and inclusive of all staff, and the service strived to improve and innovate in its practice.

We have not awarded this service a score for Well-led.

Find out about when we will not publish a key question score and what we look at when we assess Well-led.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. The service had a shared vision, strategy and culture. This was based on transparency, equity, equality and human rights, diversity and inclusion, engagement, and understanding challenges and the needs of people and their communities.

While the radiology service itself did not have a separate strategy from the overall location, staff could describe the aims and values in broad terms and how this applied to their work in the team. The hospital had developed a ‘strategy on a page’, and the provider-level strategy had fed into this. Staff in the radiology service were familiar with the strategic aims of the location and of the provider overall.

The service had recently undertaken a staff survey, which queried staff perceptions about the working culture and the organisational strategy and values. Results demonstrated improvements on the previous year’s survey, and included areas of strength such as a feeling of belonging amongst staff and the belief that the “organisation has an outstanding future”.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. The service had inclusive leaders at all levels who understood the context in which they delivered care, treatment and support and embodied the culture and values of their workforce and organisation. Leaders had the skills, knowledge, experience and credibility to lead effectively. They did so with integrity, openness and honesty.

Staff told us that close working arrangements meant that leaders were effective in managing the service and were visible and accessible if problems arose. They understood the leadership structure within and beyond the service and could identify senior hospital leaders. There were opportunities for staff to engage with leaders regularly, particularly during recent periods of unforeseen operational pressures. Senior leaders told us that visibility and consistency of communication across the team were key areas of importance and could describe how they had worked to make improvements when gaps or inconsistencies had been identified.

The radiology service lead had been in post for approximately 1 year and had support on-site from senior leaders and also from the peripatetic imaging managers, who was highly experienced and visited the location on a monthly basis. The service lead had previously worked at the location for a number of years and was very familiar with the systems and processes required for routine work.

The service had a robust fit and proper persons (FPPR) process in place to carry out comprehensive checks to assure that all leaders were suitable, safe and fit to hold their roles.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. The service fostered a positive culture where people felt they could speak up and their voice would be heard.

The provider had an effective corporate whistleblowing policy and leaders recognised the importance of and encouraged feedback and speaking up for safety amongst staff. The service had a Freedom to Speak Up Guardian (FTSUG) on site and followed the FTSUG process. The service had a Safety to Speak Up lead in each department. This was a policy that encouraged and enabled individuals to voice concerns about safety issues without fear of reprisal. It emphasised a culture were speaking up was seen as a positive action that contributed to patient and worker safety and improved care.

Staff we spoke with felt comfortable to raise concerns with leaders directly, although were aware of whistleblowing schemes and how they could use this.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. The service valued diversity in their workforce. They work towards an inclusive and fair culture by improving equality and equity for people who work for them.

The provider had effective policies on equality and human rights and equal opportunities and diversity. The service valued and demonstrated diversity in their workforce.

The hospital, as part of Ramsay Health Care UK, actively monitored and supported the Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) and the wider Workforce Disability Equality Standard (WDES) principles through its equality, diversity and inclusion policies.

The policy took into account 9 protected characteristics: age, disability, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion and belief, sex, sexual orientation, and marriage and civil partnership.

The Equality and Human Rights Policy was in date at the time of our assessment and was scheduled for review in July 2026. However, the Equal Opportunities and Diversity Policy was not in date and had expired in December 2025.

We spoke with staff who told us about adaptations and flexible working arrangements that had been discussed and considered in response to their personal circumstances. Staff working under certification of sponsorship arrangements described feeling well-supported by leaders in this and told us that their working environment was a positive one.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. The service had clear responsibilities, roles, systems of accountability and good governance. They used these to manage and deliver good quality, sustainable care, treatment and support. They act on the best information about risk, performance and outcomes, and share this securely with others when appropriate.

Staff at all levels understood the organisational structure, their roles and accountabilities. The service had clear leader and deputy arrangements, and both agency and substantive staff had a clear understanding of roles and responsibilities.

Staff followed effective policies to keep information confidential. Digital and physical records which contained patient identifiable information were stored securely and staff demonstrated a good understanding of information governance requirements.

The service made use of a whiteboard that was updated each morning with relevant details such as the daily schedule, clinical and medical staff allocations, daily tasks and who was on call if assistance was needed. Wider activity was discussed routinely at dedicated service meetings, which had a set agenda and was minuted appropriately, although these had not taken place in recent months due to operational pressures and extended leadership absences. Service meetings had an action plan which was updated at each meeting, with clear responsibilities and timeframes for completion.

The service followed provider-level risk management policies and had an appropriate risk register. This was appropriately dated and each risk had an appropriate rating, although did not include an assessment of security risks such as those identified in the ‘safe environments’ section of the report. Business continuity plans for the hospital were comprehensive and had been initiated effectively in recent months in response to external events.

The service had a comprehensive audit schedule on an electronic system that was clear to follow, consistently completed and findings could be overseen easily by leaders. Staff we spoke with did not feel like data-gathering processes such as audits were burdensome on their time and they could complete their clinical duties appropriately. Audit information and various other metrics such as waiting and reporting time performance were stored within the system and easily accessible by the necessary staff.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. The service understood their duty to collaborate and work in partnership, so services work seamlessly for people. They share information and learning with partners and collaborate for improvement.

The service worked with the hospital’s senior leadership team to deliver timely scans in accordance with the commissioning requirements of the local Integrated Care Board (ICB). We saw recent meeting minutes with the ICB where diagnostic waiting times requirements were discussed. In response to the limited availability within the local authority of a dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) scanning resource, the service had agreed to continue offering this for patients in the area contrary to their original strategic plans, as patients would otherwise have to travel longer distances at potentially greater ICB cost to access these scans.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. The service focused on continuous learning, innovation and improvement across the organisation and local system. They encouraged creative ways of delivering equality of experience, outcome and quality of life for people.

Staff were given the time to develop and improve, and we saw staff Professional Development Reviews (PDRs) that demonstrated that individual learning through provider-level training or external courses were supported and actioned by leaders. For example, staff undertaking dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) scans could undergo additional qualifications in bone densitometry offered by external bodies to improve their practice.

The service had implemented innovations to improve the quality of care they delivered. This included a new ‘Rad Alert’ software system to better ensure that urgent or significant radiological findings identified on scans were highlighted to the referrer or GP for their attention, and which required acknowledgement so that the service could be assured that they would be actioned. The provider was also in the process of introducing improved Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) software to make peer review amongst radiologists across the provider network an easy and embedded process, with an aim to further improve the standard of image interpreting and reporting amongst medical staff.

While plans had been delayed due to external factors, the service was also planning to expand its footprint to include a fixed MRI scanner to increase capacity and reduce the need for mobile scanner units.

Staff in the service were engaged and motivated to find and make improvements. For example, staff had raised a potential privacy concern when taking patients’ height and weight measurements in an area that lacked sufficient privacy, and when we identified the same concern during the assessment we could see that this had already been discussed and plans were being considered to change this practice. We also saw minuted examples of staff actively contributing in service meetings with an aim to improve the experience of patients.