- NHS hospital
Royal Oldham Hospital
Assessment report published 18 December 2025
Contents
Ratings - Medical care (Including older people's care)
Our view of the service
Medical care at the Royal Oldham Hospital is provided by the Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust.
We carried out an unannounced assessment from 8 to 10 July 2025, to follow up on the previous "requires improvement" rating and Section 29A warning notice issued in October 2024. The warning notice was issued due to concerns we had regarding the trust’s continuous flow model (CFM). Our concerns included the trust not having clear processes for decision making and clinical and environmental risk assessments relating to the transfer of patients to temporary escalation spaces (TES) on medical wards as part of the model. We also identified regulatory breaches relating to responsivity, medicines management, and health and safety that did not form part of the warning notice.
During our follow up assessment in July 2025, we reviewed 21 quality statements across the safe, effective, responsive and well-led key questions. We did not review the caring key question during this assessment.
We visited medical wards across various specialities including respiratory, general medicine, cardiology and coronary care, haematology, endoscopy and gastroenterology.
We spoke with people who used the service and staff, including nurses, heath care assistants, students, doctors, consultants and senior managers. In addition to this we also spoke with partners and stakeholders to hear their views of the service. We observed care and treatment, inspected patient care records, and reviewed the trust’s audits and performance data.
We found the service had made improvements to reduce the risks and comply with the warning notice. The trust had relaunched the use of TES spaces within the medical division in April 2025 with a new process called My Next Patient (MNP). However, we identified an ongoing need for the service to ensure that improvements made to the use of TES spaces are adhered to, and sustained, to ensure the level of risk remains reduced.
At the last assessment the service was in breach of the legal regulations relating to nutrition needs, premises and equipment. There had been improvements and the service was no longer in breach of these regulations. The service was in breach of regulations relating to safe care and treatment, staffing and governance. The service remained in breach of these regulations at this assessment.
As a result of our assessment, the safe, effective and well-led key questions remained requires improvement. The responsive key question remained good. The caring key question was rated good during our last assessment.
The overall rating for the medical care service has remained requires improvement.
People's experience of this service
Most patients and relatives we spoke with were positive about the care being provided. They told us that staff treated them with warmth, kindness and respect.
Most patients and relatives we spoke with explained they were pleased with the environment and how it met their needs.
Patients who were transferred to temporary escalation spaces told us that staff did their best to be accommodating and used the curtains to give them privacy.
Some patients had experienced multiple ward moves or found themselves on a ward that was not for their speciality. A patient told us they found it difficult to get information on their treatment plan and staff did not know the answers to their questions. Another patient experienced a delay in medication following a ward move due to a breakdown in communication. However, we did observe positive examples of how the service provided information to patients.
Most patients told us that their needs had been assessed appropriately and felt involved in the assessments undertaken.