Ealing Hospital

Updated 21 October 2026

We carried out a comprehensive assessment of End of life care and a focused follow up of Urgent and emergency care at Ealing Hospital. This was an unannounced assessment 21 and 22 July 2026.

The purpose of this assessment was to re-rate End of life care services at the location due to the age of the rating and follow up on concerns raised at our previous assessment of Urgent and emergency care following an inspection of the service in July 2025. The new ratings have been combined with the existing ratings of the other services delivered at this location . As a result of our assessment, the overall rating for Ealing Hospital has changed from Requires Improvement to Good.

At this assessment we did not identify any breaches of regulations.

Updated 16 April 2026

Ealing Hospital is a 350-bed hospital and part of London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust. End of life care is provided from both the hospital wards and Meadow House Hospice, which is located within the hospital grounds. The hospice cared for patients at home, in nursing and care homes and in the hospice. This inspection included the inpatient unit at the hospice but did not include community care.

This assessment took place on 21 and 22 July 2026. It was a routine announced inspection that assessed all of the key questions within the quality statements of safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led. At our last inspection, we rated this service as good overall. At this inspection, the rating has remained the same.

We spoke and spent time with 32 members of staff, including the hospice team, the palliative care team, mortuary staff, the spiritual care team and clinical staff involved in palliative and end of life care. We attended ward rounds, handovers and multidisciplinary team meetings. We spoke with medical teams in other departments, managers, team leaders and senior managers. We interviewed key people involved in providing end of life care, reviewed clinical records while we were on site and requested documents following our visit.

Updated 5 May 2026

We undertook a focused follow-up assessment of the urgent and emergency care service at Ealing Hospital on 22 July 2026. At our last assessment we rated this key question Requires Improvement. At this assessment the rating has changed to Good. The service has made improvements and is no longer in breach of regulations 10, dignity and respect and regulation12 safe care.

The inspection focused on 5 quality statements in the safe key question which were rated as requires improvement at the last inspection. We followed up on the action plans produced by the service to assess whether improvements had been made and found the service had made several improvements.

The redevelopment of the department included additional seating areas, a dedicated mental health assessment room and improvements to the environment such as new flooring improving the safety and comfort for patients. Information about waiting times was displayed in waiting areas keeping patients informed on expected waits. Additional staff had been recruited, including a registered mental health nurse. New tools were introduced to support patients and staff could access translation services in a timely manner.

Updated 20 May 2022

Updated 31 August 2018

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

• Mandatory training rates for medical staff were low including for safeguarding level 3 training.
• Staffing remained a challenge for the service. There were significant vacancies in the community children’s nursing team and the staffing establishment was not sufficient for the level of staffing required on the children’s outpatients and day care unit.
• There was no protocol or standard operating procedure available for staff to follow if a child or young person became unwell on the outpatients and day care unit.
• The Women and Children’s division still did not have oversight of young people admitted to adult wards at Ealing Hospital. There was still no flagging system to identify young people who had been admitted to adult wards.
• Staff we spoke with felt learning was not shared effectively however the trust told us there were cross site governance meetings where staff could attend where learning was shared.
• Not all of the risks we identified at the Ealing Hospital site were on the risk register.
• Staff on the children’s outpatients and day care unit did not receive clinical or safeguarding supervision.
• Nursing staff had not received training in the recognition and management of children with sepsis.
• The service provided care and treatment based on national guidance and evidence of its effectiveness. However, some clinical guidelines had not been reviewed in line with trust timescales.
• There was no longer a play specialist team at the hospital. A play specialist was being recruited but the post was to be shared with the other hospital site.
• The amount of time managers dedicated to the children’s services at Ealing Hospital remained very limited.
• Staff still felt unsettled and uncertain about the future provision of children’s services at Ealing hospital.

However:

• The trust planned and provided services in a way that met the needs of local people.
• There had been significant improvements in referral to treatment times since our last inspection, with consistently good overall compliance of over 95%.
• The service took account of the individual needs of children and young people including those with learning disabilities. The unit had a learning disability champion and encouraged the use of learning disability passports to help inform decision making.
• The community children’s nursing team and continuing care team supported transitional care needs and children with long term conditions. The team promoted bringing care closer to home and worked with children and young people to prevent and reduce hospital admissions.
• Staff were passionate about their work toward children and their families and focused on delivering patient centred care.

Updated 21 June 2016

Overall the critical care at Ealing was good. Patients were cared for by a safe number of competent staff who used evidence-based practice to achieve good outcomes. Staff had good access to patient information and current best practice guidelines as well as up to date research articles. Patient safety thermometer results were good and there was a proactive incident reporting culture.

We saw evidence that incidents were investigated appropriately, with learning points disseminated to unit staff, . h However, there was limited shared learning relating to incidents. The vision for the service focused on an improvement in quality and safety through investment in staff training and development.

We saw some evidence of innovation such as the development of the high flow oxygen service.

The critical care service was caring and patient privacy and dignity was maintained at all times. Staff knowledge and implementation of safeguarding was good and we saw evidence that regular patient risk assessments took place. Patients’ pain was frequently assessed and well managed by staff who ensured patient comfort at all times.

Multidisciplinary working was embedded on the unit, particularly during the weekly meeting.

Updated 21 June 2016

Overall outpatient and diagnostic services at Ealing Hospital were good because there were systems in place to identify record and review incidents and staff were aware of how incidents should be escalated and recorded.

Outpatient and diagnostic services were visibly clean and there were processes to ensure cleaning was maintained.

We saw good evidence of how the diagnostic services benchmark their services through national and local audit activity and national guidelines including NICE and Royal College of Radiologists.

We found staff were compassionate, caring and proud to work at Ealing Hospital.

Mandatory training was provided however staff told us face to face training was often difficult to access or attend due to clinical commitments.

Hard copy records were not always available in time for clinics; the trust was aware of this and had started phased plans to integrate hard copy records in preparation for a move to an electronic record management system across all sites.

The service had a backlog of patients waiting more than 18 weeks for an appointment and had attempted to reduce waiting times for patients. There was a good system in place which highlighted the patients who had waited longest and should be clinically prioritised for the first available appointments.

Updated 20 May 2022