- NHS hospital
King's College Hospital
Assessment report published 28 August 2026
Contents
Ratings - Urgent and emergency services
Our view of the service
King’s College Hospital is run by King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. The urgent and emergency care services at King’s College Hospital include an adult emergency department (ED) and a paediatric emergency department. There is also an Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC) on-site which works closely with the ED. However it is registered separately and run by a different provider, so we did not review it on this assessment. The department provided emergency care 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to patients arriving by foot and by ambulance. It is a major trauma centre for both adults and children.
We carried out an assessment of urgent and emergency care services at King’s College Hospital on 12 and 13 May 2026. This was a short-notice announced assessment. We returned for an unannounced assessment on 11 June 2026. During these visits we spoke with 47 members of staff, 10 patients and 2 family members, and reviewed the notes of 71 patients. We visited all areas of the department.
Overall, this service was rated as requires improvement. This was because the service did not always provide safe, responsive, or well-led care. For example, the service did not always ensure staff followed infection prevention and control procedures, the service did not always ensure corridor care was delivered as safely as possible, the service did not have a dedicated pharmacy service, the service did not always ensure that equipment was safe for staff to use, care was not always provided in a timely and equitable manner due to overcrowding and long waits, and the service did not have a dedicated play specialist in its paediatric ED. However, for some of these issues, the service had made significant improvements between our visit in May 2026 and our visit in June 2026.
There were also areas of good practice. For example, the service had a positive culture in which staff were able to raise concerns and ask for help, the service regularly monitored its outcomes to improve them, the service worked well in partnership with external organisations, and staff were kind and understanding to patients.
During this assessment, we identified breaches of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. These breaches were for regulations 12 (safe care and treatment), regulation 15 (premises and equipment) and regulation 18 (staffing). An action plan will be requested from the trust to address these breaches upon the final publication of this report.
People's experience of this service
Patients and families told us that the care they received was compassionate and respectful. They told us that staff listened to them, responded to their needs, and talked to them in a kind manner. However, the service’s feedback for the NHS ‘Friends and Family Test’ (FFT) was 71% positive for April 2026. This was below the England average of 80%.
People’s experiences were often affected by systemic pressures on the service. Patients told us that they waited a long time for care. Waiting times were not displayed. Patients requiring admission had to wait long periods for beds to become available. This was also true for patients with mental health needs who were waiting for a bed at a different NHS trust. Some patients were cared for in the corridor due to a lack of space within the department, often for long periods of time. The department was loud and very busy because of these systemic pressures. Food and drinks were provided to patients who were in cubicles or in the corridor while waiting for a cubicle.