Queen Mary's Hospital

Updated 28 August 2025

Date of assessment: 11 February 2025. 

Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust and St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust formed a hospital group and appointed a Group Chief Executive in August 2021 (following the appointment of a Chairman in Common in 2019) and a single executive team in February 2022.

Queen Mary’s Hospital (a registered location for St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust) provides services that include outpatient rapid diagnostic facilities, sexual health, neurorehabilitation, limb fitting and amputee rehabilitation. As well as cancer screening and treatment, dermatology, a day case unit which offers diagnostic service for endoscopy and urology and a surgical treatment centre for elective day case surgery. 

This assessment looked at surgical services due to aged ratings and concerns regarding Never Events within the service. We inspected all quality statements across the five key questions:, which we rated as good. The rating from surgery has been combined with ratings of outpatients from the last inspection. See our previous reports to get a full picture of all other services at Queen Mary's Hospital. The rating of Queen Mary's Hospital remains requires improvement. In our assessment of surgery services we found there was a good safety culture where incidents were investigated, and learning was embedded to promote good practice. Staff provided safe care and treatment, they followed evidence-based practice and there was effective team work to support positive patient outcomes. Staff were kind, caring and compassionate. The service planned care to meet the needs of people, took account of patients’ individual needs, and made it easy for people to give feedback. The service and staff were well-led by strong leaders who supported staff to develop their skills. Staff were committed to continually learning and improving services. 

Updated 30 January 2025

Date of assessment: 11 February 2025.

We carried out an unannounced comprehensive inspection of surgical services at Queen Mary’s Hospital due to aged ratings and concerns regarding Never Events within the service. We inspected all quality statements across the five key questions: safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led.

During our inspection we visited the surgical treatment centre. This included 4 theatres, patient assessment rooms, patient waiting and changing areas and the recovery room. We also visited staffing areas within the centre. We spoke with over 18 members of staff including nursing and medical staff, healthcare assistants, housekeeping staff, and managers. We spoke with 8 patients. We rated the service as good overall. There was a good safety culture where incidents were investigated, and learning was embedded to promote good practice. Staff provided safe care and treatment, they followed evidence-based practice and there was effective team work to support positive patient outcomes. Staff were kind, caring and compassionate. The service planned care to meet the needs of people, took account of patients’ individual needs, and made it easy for people to give feedback. The service and staff were well-led by strong leaders who supported staff to develop their skills. Staff were committed to continually learning and improving services.

Updated 19 July 2018

• The service was not always responsive to patients needs and was not recording waiting times or reporting referral to treatment times (RTTs). There was a plan for the trust to start reporting RTTs in January 2019.
• There was a poor general understanding and implementation of the principles of the Mental Capacity Act 2005.
• Staff felt senior leadership was not always visible, as some leaders were based at the St George’s site and did not visit the Queen Mary’s site often.
• The paediatric clinic did not have a separate children’s area and this had not been included in their risk register.
• Waiting times for appointments for patients were long and they were not always informed by staff of the delay.
• Many of the problems faced were due to poor IT systems. The new IT system was due to be fully implemented in 18 months to help resolve these issues.
• The ‘did not attend’ rate for the trust’s outpatients service at Queen Mary's Hospital was higher than the England average.

However:

• The service provided care and treatment based on national guidance.
• Patients were treated with kindness and compassion and felt involved in their decision making processes.