St Mary's Hospital

Updated 16 July 2026

Date of assessment: 10 February to 11 February 2026.

Reason for assessment: This assessment was part of our Winter Pressures Programme.

St Mary’s Hospital provides a range of NHS hospital services. At this assessment, we inspected 2 assessment service groups: urgent and emergency care (UEC) and medical care including older persons’ medicine. Following the assessment, the UEC service has an overall rating of requires improvement, and medical care services has an overall rating of good. The rating from UEC and medical care has been combined with ratings of the other services from the last inspections. See our previous reports to get a full picture of all the other services at St Mary’s Hospital.

We found breaches of regulations in relation to safeguarding, safe care and treatment, environment and governance.

Updated 7 November 2025

On 10 to 11 February 2026, we carried out an assessment at St Mary's Hospital, Isle of Wight. This assessment was part of our Winter Pressures Programme where we inspected Medical Care and Urgent and Emergency Care. This report presents findings from visits to 11 wards and clinical areas within the Medical and Older People's Medicine directorate, at St Mary's Hospital. We spoke with 17 patients and 4 relatives or carers. We reviewed 15 sets of adult patient records and spoke with more than 30 staff members including consultants, resident doctors, nurses, senior leaders, healthcare assistants, administration staff, housekeeping staff, security staff and volunteers.

We assessed 27 quality statements across the safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led key questions and combined the scores with those from the previous assessment to give the rating.

Medical care was rated good overall at this assessment. Most key question ratings remain good, with ongoing strengths in person‑centred care, compassion and leadership. However, the safe key question is now rated requires improvement.

People were consistently treated with kindness, dignity and respect. They were involved in decisions about their care and supported to maintain independence and confidentiality.

Services generally met people's needs through good organisation and delivery. Care was person centred with efforts to adapt to changing needs and ensure equitable access.

Care and treatment were based on best available evidence, with a focus on achieving positive outcomes and quality of life.

Leadership was visible, credible and values driven. This promoted a culture of openness, learning and person-centred care. Governance systems were in place to support quality and improvement.

However, concerns relating to training compliance, safeguarding knowledge, staffing pressures and identified environmental risks. The recurring thread across the report relates to workforce oversight: training compliance, appraisals and staffing pressures suggesting leadership oversight has not fully kept pace with operational risk despite an otherwise strong culture. Additional areas for development include improving consistency in the use of translation services and establishing a more structured approach to meeting culturally and religiously diverse needs. While leadership remains a strength, further work is required to enhance oversight and ensure risks are consistently identified and mitigated.

At this assessment we identified breaches of regulations in relation to safeguarding. An action plan will be requested upon publication of the final report.

Updated 7 November 2025

On the 10 and 11 February 2026 we carried out an inspection of urgent and emergency care services at St Mary’s Hospital which is operated by Isle of Wight NHS Trust. We inspected this service as part of the winter pressure program.

Urgent and Emergency Care (UEC) was managed across the emergency department (ED) and children's emergency unit (CEU) collaboratively, serving to an island population of 140,000.

The department received patients from both the ambulance service and individuals self-presenting to the front door.

We spoke with 10 patients and 30 staff and reviewed 12 patient care and treatment records.

The service was in breach of the legal regulation relating to safe care and treatment, environment and governance.

We rated the service as Requires Improvement.

We found there was a lack of clinical oversight within the waiting room. During our visit, we observed patients in visible distress and had to request staff assistance for at least two individuals. This meant that patients were at risk of deteriorating without a clinical member of staff noticing. The trust was also not meeting NHS standard 95% of patients being seen within four hours.

During the inspection, we identified a number of environmental risks within the emergency department. We observed patients being cared for on beds positioned in corridors, including directly across the entrances to patient cubicles. This meant that staff were required to move corridor-based patients in order to access others within cubicles.

This arrangement posed a risk to patient safety, as it could delay timely access in the event of an emergency or clinical deterioration, and did not support safe patient flow or prompt clinical intervention.

The emergency department did not have access to ligature-free toilet facilities in either the adult or paediatric areas. The trust provided ligature risk assessments in response to our data request; however this did not include the adult and paediatric toilets which limited assurance that associated risks had been formally identified and mitigated.

However, the service had a proactive culture of safety and investigated and reported safety incidents. Staff worked well together to support people. The trust cared about and promoted the wellbeing of their staff and fostered a positive culture where people could speak up and their voice would be heard.

In instances where CQC has begun a process of regulatory action, we may publish this information on our website after any representations and/or appeals have been concluded, if the action has been taken forward. If we have requested an action plan, this will be requested upon publication of the final report.

Updated 23 September 2021

Updated 6 June 2018

Our rating of this service stayed the same. We rated it as good because:

• Staff understood how to protect patients from abuse and the service worked well with other agencies to do so.
• The service controlled infection risk well.
• Staff completed and updated risk assessments for each patient. They kept clear records and asked for support when necessary.
• The service had enough nursing and medical staff, with the right mix of qualification and skills, to keep patients safe and provide the right care and treatment.
• The service managed patient safety incidents well. Staff recognised incidents and reported them appropriately.
• The service followed best practice when prescribing, giving, recording and storing medicines. Patients received the right medication at the right dose at the right time.
• Staff gave patients enough food and drink to meet their needs and improve their health.
• Managers monitored the effectiveness of care and treatment and used findings to improve them. They compared local results with those of other services to learn from them.
• Staff of different kinds worked together as a team to benefit patients. Doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals supported each other to provide good care.
• Staff understood how and when to assess whether a patient had the capacity to make decisions about their care. They followed the trust policy and procedures when a patient could not give consent.
• Staff cared for patients with compassion and provided emotional support to minimise their distress.
• The service took account of patients’ individual needs.
• People could access the service when they needed it.
• Service leaders had the right skills and abilities to run a service providing high-quality sustainable care.
• Managers across the trust promoted a positive culture that supported and valued staff, creating a sense of common purpose based on shared values.

However:

• Patients stayed longer on this critical care unit than was always necessary meaning mixed sex accommodation requirements were not always met.
• Seven day services were not fully established across all of the multi-disciplinary teams, although action had been taken which would develop the service to meet the seven day standard.
• Not all GPIC standards had been met in full however there were mitigations and plans in place to address the shortfall.

Updated 23 September 2021

Updated 23 September 2021

Updated 4 September 2019

Our rating of this service improved. We rated it as good because:

• There was strong, clear and visible clinical leadership that enabled the service to improve at pace. The end of life care and the specialist palliative care services were under one leadership of the integrated palliative and end of life care team. There was joined up working across the trust with a single point of referral and contact.
• Staff cared for patients with compassion and kindness and their dignity was respected and maintained. Staff were passionate about their vision and the improvements they wanted to make to benefit patients, their care and support.
• There were appropriate governance arrangements to monitor the service provision for all patients. There were action plans to address the shortfalls and monitoring systems to ensure continuous compliance to regulation.
• The trust assessed, monitored and improved the quality and safety of the services it provided. It undertook audits to assure staff consistently completed and reviewed evidence-based and end of life documentation. Data was collected from bereaved relatives and reported every six months and as a result, service improvements were identified.
• The trust had implemented safety systems. Staff completed and updated risk assessments for each patient. They kept clear records and escalated concerns when necessary.
• Staff were trained in safe administration of medicines via syringe drivers. There was now a structured training for their use and only staff who had completed their competencies could use the equipment.
• The lead clinician regularly checked and monitored that best practice was used to inform decisions about patient’s treatment and care. Wards were now monitored through unannounced inspection of their areas and were given feedback on their performance against the services strategy and vision.
• The trust planned and provided services in a way that met the needs of local people.
• Staff were aware of what constituted end of life incidents. The trust reported incidents relating to end of life care. There was a risk register to provide oversight of risks relating to end of life care that was monitored.

However:

• Key services were not available seven days a week.
• Staff did not always start patients who were known as end of life care onto the end of life care pathway, especially those in the last few days of their life, in a timely manner.
• There were delays in the transfer of deceased from wards to the mortuary.

Updated 14 December 2022

Updated 6 June 2018

We previously inspected outpatients jointly with diagnostic imaging so we cannot compare our new ratings directly with previous ratings.

On this inspection we rated the outpatients service as good because:

• People who used the outpatient services were kept safe from avoidable harm because there were suitable arrangements to enable staff to identify and respond to risks.
• There were sufficient numbers of staff, and they had been provided with safety training. Staff were further supported through service related policies and procedures in addition to evidence based professional guidance.
• Feedback from people using outpatient services, and those close to them, was continually positive about the way staff treated them.
• Services provided by the outpatient departments mostly reflected the needs of the local population.
• Most patients were able to access the service in a timely way, with many specialties in line with or close to the national averages in waiting times.

However:

• Outpatient services did not have clear, well-established and effective governance processes.
• Outpatient services did not have clear and effective systems for identifying risks, planning to eliminate or reduce them, and coping with both the expected and unexpected.

Updated 23 September 2021