Fairfield General Hospital

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• Overview
• Kindness, compassion and dignity
• Treating people as individuals
• Independence, choice and control
• Responding to people’s immediate needs
• Workforce wellbeing and enablement

This means we looked for evidence that the service involved people and treated them with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.

We assessed 5 quality statements.

At our last assessment we rated this key question good. At this assessment the rating has remained good. This meant people were supported and treated with dignity and respect; and involved as partners in their care.

Most patients, relatives, partners and stakeholders described staff as kind, caring and respectful. Patients felt listened to, involved in their care and treated with dignity. Staff treated patients as individuals, making reasonable adjustments for communication, culture, religion, disability and personal preferences. Staff generally felt well supported by managers, had access to wellbeing resources and flexible working, and described positive team cultures that enabled person‑centred care.

However, staff did not always respond promptly to call bells or prioritise requests for assistance, including toileting and pain relief. While most interactions were caring, there were occasions where staff did not actively involve patients during bedside discussions.

We have not awarded this service a score for Caring.

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

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. The service treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity. Staff treated colleagues from other organisations with kindness and respect.

Most patients we spoke with felt listened to, respected, supported and included in their plan of care. They said that staff were friendly, approachable and listened to their concerns. Some patients described staff as hardworking and committed, despite being visibly overstretched and working in challenging staffing conditions.

Partners and stakeholders told us that from their observations, carers and patients were treated with kindness, empathy and respect. Staff regularly took time to listen, even during busy periods, and were never dismissive of concerns raised by carers or relatives. They said carers were valued and recognised. For example, a dedicated carers day was organised to celebrate and appreciate their role. Staff frequently offered refreshments and created a welcoming environment for visiting family members.

We spoke with a patient living with dementia and their relative who spoke positively about the caring nature of staff. The relative said “I’m really impressed with all the staff. They look after me too, staff have provided me with food when I had been here all night”. We observed staff encouraging and supporting a patient with cognitive impairment to mobilise safely around the ward.

Another relative said “the staff are nice and caring, they know my dad, they know what he likes and doesn’t like when it comes to his drinks”.

We looked at patient feedback data for the medical division between August 2025 and January 2026. The data included responses from 3414 patients and the average score showed that 95% of patients had selected ‘very good’ or ‘good’ for the ‘dignity and respect’ metric.

Most patients we spoke with agreed that staff had given them privacy and dignity and feedback was positive. For example, staff closed the curtains when providing care and made sure patients were well covered when assisting them to the toilet and closing the door. Confidential conversations were held privately and not in communal areas.

During our assessment, we used a short observational framework for inspection (SOFI) to observe the mood and engagement of patients, and the quality of staff interactions. Overall, interactions between patients and staff were positive. We observed staff providing reassurance, explaining care and assessments and seeking consent before interventions. Patients were supported with their mobility, comfort and dignity, including being assisted by staff to sit in chairs or return to bed, with privacy maintained through the use of curtains.

We observed mostly positive and caring interactions between staff and their patients and their relatives who used the service. However, we observed instances where staff, while assisting with a patient’s personal care, spoke about the patient in the third person rather than addressing them directly. We also saw that during a handover, staff discussed the patient at their bedside without actively involving them.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. The service treated people as individuals and made sure people’s care, support and treatment met people’s needs and preferences. They took account of people’s strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics.

Patients were positive about the service supporting their relatives and carers to visit whenever it suited them, including overnight stays. One patient told us that staff had allowed his dog to visit and that this had made him happy.

Staff made a range of adjustments to support patients. For example, we observed communication tools being used for patients living with dementia, experiencing delirium, or facing other communication difficulties. Staff understood the emotional and social impact that a person’s care, treatment or condition had on their wellbeing and on those close to them. Family members fed back the support staff had provided them.

Staff and patients had access to interpretation and language translation services, including support for translating documents. British Sign Language interpreters were also available on request. Patients could use hearing loops in certain areas to improve communication and understanding. In addition, braille and easy‑read formats could be provided, as well as hearing loops for people with hearing impairments.

Staff shared information with patients about their treatments, local services and patients’ rights. Information on how to complain was visible on all the wards visited.

The hospital had a multifaith chaplaincy service and a bereavement service which staff could access to provide support to patients and their relatives. Staff told us that faith leaders could attend the patient’s bedside if requested.

Staff shared examples of when they had supported patients to meet their cultural and religious needs. This included a patient with limited mobility who could not attend the prayer room, so staff supported the patient in the family room to pray while a staff member remained outside.

We saw evidence that patients were offered choices of food and drink that met their cultural and religious needs, including kosher and halal options. We reviewed the electronic ordering system and found that it provided appropriate menu choices to support this. Staff gave an example of a patient who arrived on the ward late and required halal food, and housekeeping staff contacted the kitchen to ensure a suitable meal was provided. We spoke with a patient who had been provided with halal and vegetarian food and said there were lots of options to choose from.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. The service promoted people’s independence, so people knew their rights and had choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing.

Staff shared examples of when they had identified and addressed individual needs prior to procedures. Reasonable adjustments included the patient’s choice to have family members remain with them on the ward before and after any procedures to ease their level of anxiety. Another example was allowing patients to choose music and playing this during treatment.

Staff gave examples of how they had adapted activities to individual preferences rather than expecting patients to fit into a fixed routine. For example, staff had observed what was meaningful to a patient living with dementia and supported them to choose how they spent their time. They described how this had helped settle the patient and made them feel more comfortable when they were doing an activity that they enjoyed.

Staff also gave examples of when they had used ‘this is me’ documents to find important details about patients living with dementia, such as their likes and dislikes. They used this information to play their favourite music and found this helped reduce agitation and improved engagement with activities. Staff had also provided a patient with a familiar therapeutic comfort aid such as a dementia doll when they were being discharged to a care home to help ease their transition.

We spoke with a patient living with dementia and their relative, who was the patient’s main carer at home. They provided feedback that was positive about the care provided, stating that staff had asked questions about how to calm the patient and what they liked and disliked, which they felt was helpful. The relative had been supported to stay overnight and said they felt well cared for, and staff had been attentive to both of their needs.

Partners and stakeholders reported that carers were appropriately involved in care discussions, supporting patient choice and safer transitions from hospital to home.

We scored the service as 2. The evidence showed some shortfalls. Staff did not always respond to people’s needs in the moment or act to minimise any discomfort, concern or distress.

The service completed call bell audits which reviewed whether all patients had a call bell to hand and if this was answered promptly. Audit data from July to December 2025 showed mixed performance across 9 medical wards. Although most wards achieved mostly green RAG ratings, 2 wards had more months rated amber or red.

We observed delays in call bell responses, including patients who waited for almost 7 minutes and others up to 5 minutes.

We saw 2 occasions whereby a bathroom call bell was used on AMU however the call bell monitoring system did not display the location the call bell related to. On one of these occasions, we asked 2 staff which bathroom call bell was sounding, and they told us they didn’t know.

We observed one patient tell staff that their requests for assistance with toileting and pain relief overnight had not been met, despite using the call bell multiple times. Staff did not prioritise attending to the patient until we escalated the concern to a manager.

However, staff shared examples of when they had made reasonable adjustments to meet the needs of patients. For example, additional needs related to neurodiversity had been identified during a patients’ preadmission assessment and was added to the safety huddle and morning handover. The patient was then supported to wear ear loops during their stay on the ward and during a cardiology procedure to reduce the sensory challenges of the environment.

A further example was how staff supported a patient with learning disabilities by recognising and responding to anxiety about a medical procedure. They used a creative and reassuring approach to demonstrate the procedure beforehand, which staff told us helped reduce anxiety and supported the patient’s understanding during the consent process.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. The service cared about and promoted the wellbeing of their staff and supported and enabled staff to always deliver person-centred care.

Most staff spoke positively about the support they received from their managers. For example, one staff member described feeling well supported on their return to work following ill health, which they said had a positive impact on their mental wellbeing. Another staff member reported receiving strong managerial support and clear communication during a period of bereavement, which helped them return to work successfully.

There were international nurses’ forums available, and the service provided international recruitment packs for overseas nurses. This included practical information on visas, travel, accommodation, employment checks, the local area, and the support available before and after recruitment.

Most international nurses we spoke with said they felt happy in their roles, well supported, and were positive about their career progression. However, some feedback included feeling they were treated unfairly in relation to promotions and the allocation of tasks on the wards.

Students we spoke to felt supported and said they were offered learning opportunities. Some students were considering applying for jobs on the ward they were training on once qualified.

Some staff told us they were frustrated and wanted more time to care for patients rather than undertaking administrative work created by multiple documentation systems. Many staff commented that the bedside paperwork was very burdensome, and they had raised this with senior leaders. There had been a discussion about doing a test of change to see if this created more time to care for patients.

Staff could access employee support programmes for organisational development, counselling, health and wellbeing. Staff spoke positively about the SCARF (support, care, assist, recognise and family) programme for support. Staff also said they had access to counselling and emotional support following difficult deaths.

There were processes in place to support extended annual leave and flexible working requests where possible. For example, when staff have key life events, care arrangements and for international staff who want to travel to see their families. Managers told us that approval of such requests had been made and considered the needs of the service and staff members. They gave examples of short-term changes to working arrangements for cultural reasons, such as a request to work nightshifts during Ramadan.

Team building sessions had been held throughout January 2026 on one ward to promote discussion about the ward’s progress, achievements and to identify actions for the future.

The cardiology service had held a full‑day away day to bring teams together and provided dedicated time for reflection, discussion and service development.

The care organisation had implemented a monthly staff newsletter to provide updates on actions taken in relation to staff feedback. The newsletters featured different themes each month, including violence and aggression, and highlighted initiatives that had been piloted to address these concerns. The newsletter promoted clear routes for raising concerns, including incident reporting and a link to the Freedom to Speak Up (FTSU) process.

A care organisation ‘staff safety at work’ survey had been launched in October 2025 to gain staff experiences. This was in response to an increase in the number of physical or verbal violence and aggression incidents affecting staff. The care organisation had added this to the care organisation risk register alongside a task and finish group to improve the safety of staff in relation to violence and aggression. Actions included additional channels for gaining staff feedback through suggestion and feedback boxes and improved guidance for line-managers on supporting staff.

We saw evidence that the care organisation had introduced a digital staff suggestion box in February 2026 to strengthen communication between staff and senior leaders and to provide an additional route for raising ideas, suggestions and concerns. Staff could request a direct response, which would be reviewed and responded to by members of the senior management team. The aim was to support staff engagement, improve how concerns were heard and acted upon, and promote a supportive and open culture. At the time of our assessment, it was not possible to evaluate the impact of the initiative as it was still in progress.

Some wards had introduced initiatives that had demonstrated improvements in NHS staff survey results over the previous 2 years. For example, staff rotations, adjusted shift patterns and cultural awareness events.