King's Mill Hospital

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• Overview
• Assessing needs
• Delivering evidence-based care and treatment
• How staff, teams and services work together
• Supporting people to live healthier lives
• Monitoring and improving outcomes
• Consent to care and treatment

We looked for evidence that patients and communities had the best possible outcomes because their needs were assessed. We checked that patients’ care, support and treatment reflected their needs and any protected equality characteristics, ensuring people were at the centre of their care. We also looked for evidence that leaders instilled a culture of improvement, where understanding current outcomes and exploring best practice was part of their everyday work.

This key question has been rated as good. This meant people’s outcomes were consistently good, and people’s feedback confirmed this.

We have not awarded this service a score for Effective.

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

We did not look at Assessing needs during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Effective.

The service planned and delivered people’s care and treatment with them, including what was important and mattered to them. Staff did this in line with legislation and current evidence-based good practice and standards.

Policies we reviewed were up to date and had been approved by the appropriate governance processes. Staff assessed patients in line with national and best practice guidelines.

Staff followed up-to-date policies to plan and deliver high quality care according to best practice and national guidance. The service followed National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines such as Acute Respiratory Infections (NG237), which focusses on initial assessments, antibiotic and diagnosis. It also followed the management of pneumonia (NG250). These standardised care and ensured staff followed national guidelines.

They used effective tools for screening malnutrition and dehydration and acted on any indicators of concern. Patients with special dietary needs were catered for. Snacks and drink were available on all the wards, EAU, SDEC and discharge lounge.

They used effective tools for screening and monitoring pain. We saw this was included in the daily risk assessments and documented in patients care plans. Patient were offered analgesia as required.

We reviewed 5 care plans and found Recommended Summary Plan for Emergency Care and Treatment (ReSPECT) and do not attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation (DNACPR) forms were completed in line with national guidance. ReSPECT forms records clinical care, treatment preferences and emergency decisions.

The service worked well across teams and services to support people. They made sure people only needed to tell their story once by sharing their assessment of needs when people moved between different services.

There was good teamwork between medical, nursing and allied professional staff. During board rounds and handovers, staff shared patient information and discussed progress, interventions and future plans. A board round is when doctors, nurses, and other staff stand around a board that shows every patient on the ward. They talk about each patient to check how they are doing and what they need next. We observed staff sharing information from EAU to ward staff to handover a patients care.

Staff had good working relationships within the hospital to manage flow through the hospital. There were board rounds at regular intervals throughout the day to ensure that patients could be admitted or discharged in a timely manner. The trust had flow meetings throughout the day to have full oversight of the whole hospital and for senior leaders to assess any areas of concern. Flow meetings review capacity and patient movements in and out of the hospital. Each department shared information on line with regards to bed status, patient numbers and planned discharges.

Staff from SDEC would visit the emergency department (ED) daily to pull patient out of ED into SDEC for care and treatment.

Staff had access to the information they needed to appropriately assess, plan and deliver patients’ care, treatment and support. Patients had one set of notes that would move with them throughout their hospital stay to share information.

Staff from the virtual ward and SDEC assessed patients' needs at home and could contact social services and community services for ongoing support.

The discharge lounge accepted patients that had planned discharges from all wards. The electronic system showed how many bed spaces and fit to sit chairs were available to allow staff to transfer patients waiting for discharges. The discharge lounge staff arranged medication to take home and transportation for patients.They liaised with the families, ambulance staff, care homes, community services and discharge location.

We did not look at Supporting people to live healthier lives during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Effective.

The service routinely monitored people’s care and treatment to continuously improve it. Staff ensured that outcomes were mainly positive and consistent, and that they met both clinical expectations and the expectations of people themselves.

We found that people who used the service experienced positive outcomes as set out in legislation, standards, and evidence-based clinical guidance such as National Institute Clinical Excellence (NICE). Patients had access to 7 days a week diagnostic and support services. Medical staff we spoke with said that there was good access to services to support patient treatment and care.

Matrons carried out weekly and monthly audits including, cleanliness, nursing records, medicines management and risk assessments. We saw medical records audits for March 2026 showed a compliance of 96%, environmental audits were 96% compliance. Audit results were shared with staff directly and presented to the divisional governance meetings.

The trust participated in relevant local and national clinical audits at both service and organisational levels. The hospital monitored the compliance with the sepsis bundle and carried out weekly sepsis screening audits. In December 2025 compliance was 100%. This meant patients at risk of sepsis were treated quickly to prevent them becoming more unwell.

In December 2025, the percentage of people waiting less than 18 weeks for treatment was 59% compared to the national value of 61%. In December 2025, the unplanned reattendances rate was 9.2%, which was less than the England percentage of 9.5%.

The published Summary Hospital-level Mortality Indicator (SHMI) was within the expected range for observed deaths at the trust between October 2024 to September 2025, with a value of 1.04.

The hospital’s Sentinel Stroke National Audit Programme (SSNAP) used combined total key indicator levels. The test gives each hospital a score from A to E, where A is the best and E is the lowest. From July to September 2025, this hospital scored a D. Across the whole country, 40% of hospitals also scored a D, which was the most common score during that time.

The national respiratory audit checked how well the trust cared for patients. The most recent results from 2024 showed that 31% of patients got the right care when they left hospital. This was lower than the national average of 49%. However, 75% of patients were seen by a respiratory specialist within 24 hours. This was better than the national average of 48%.

The most recent Adult Inpatient Survey for 2024, showed that the trust performed ‘much better than expected’ compared with other trusts, for questions regarding the hospital and ward.

The service told people about their rights around consent and respected these when delivering person-centred care and treatment. Patients understood their rights around consent to the care and treatment they were offered.

There were systems and practices to ensure patients understood the care and treatment being recommended. This helped them make an informed decision.

Staff gained consent from patients for their care and treatment in line with legislation and guidance. Staff made sure patients consented to treatment based on all the information available. Patients received information about care and treatment in a way they could understand and had appropriate support and time to make decisions.

Staff mainly understood the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS). Although staff were aware of which patients had a MCA and DoLs in place, we saw some forms were completed and some were partially completed and staff knowledge of who completed them was mixed, especially on wards 43 and 21. We raised this on our inspection and following our inspection the trust developed an action plan to address our concerns. The action plan included a review of training, documentation, handover process and audits, additional support from MCA and safeguarding specialist teams and engaging with all staff on the wards.