Royal Oldham Hospital

On this page

• Overview
• Person-centred Care
• Care provision, Integration and continuity
• Providing Information
• Listening to and involving people
• Equity in access
• Equity in experiences and outcomes
• Planning for the future

We assessed 3 quality statements and their ratings were combined with previous scores for quality statements not reviewed during this assessment.

Patient feedback on person-centred care was positive, and staff were observed making reasonable adjustments and completing supporting documentation for most patients. The service supplied appropriate, accurate and up-to-date information in formats that were tailored to individual needs. Patient feedback about feeling listened to was very positive.

Staff kept accurate and complete records to facilitate communication and coordination which promoted continuity of care. However, staff raised concerns about continuity of care due to the use of multiple systems for recording patient information.

At our last assessment we rated this key question good. At this assessment the rating remained the same.

This service scored 71 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

Most patients we spoke with said they were happy that the care they received had been person-centred.

We looked at patient feedback data across 10 medical wards between 1 July 2024 and 30 June 2025. The data included responses from 1427 patients. The average score for the medical wards was that 48% of patients strongly agreed and 29% agreed their additional needs were met by staff. On average, 15 % of patients surveyed said they did not have any additional needs.

Staff compliance with the eLearning component of learning disability and autism training was 97% across the medical division, exceeding the trust’s target. However, the trust had not yet implemented the face-to-face element of the training that some staff were required to undertake in line with national requirements.

Staff knew about resources they could use to improve holistic care such as ‘hospital passports’ for patients who are autistic. This resource is designed to help patients, and their family communicate their needs to doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals. We looked at care records and found that this had been completed for most of the eligible patients (6 out of 8) with family involvement.

We could see that reasonable adjustments had been made. For example, one patient was allowed to remain on the same ward to avoid the distress associated with changing wards and environments. Patient and families told us that staff had kept them informed about treatment plans and they had received support from the learning disability nurse. Care records also showed that patients had been asked about their cultural and spiritual needs and communication needs. One family told us that they had seen an improvement compared to previous admissions in how staff supported their child who was autistic.

We reviewed data from a spot check audit in April 2025 that focused on patients with a learning disability. The audit showed good compliance with health passports; 8 out of 9 eligible patients had a health passport completed and 1 patient had declined the process. Areas of improvement were noted, including delays in completing health passports for 2 patients during their initial admission and the lack of discussion for 4 patients during safety huddles. There were plans in place for the learning disability lead nurse to complete a nurse walkaround in September 2025 to monitor the improvements.

Staff used ‘this is me’ documents to record important details about patients living with dementia, such as their likes and dislikes. We reviewed patient records and found that they had been completed for most of the eligible patients (5 out of 7). We could see that family members had been involved in the process.

We observed dementia information displayed on patient boards, including links to support services. There were also resources and activities available to encourage mental stimulation and nostalgic objects to help reduce agitation and promote engagement.

Patients care plans we reviewed reflected their physical, mental, emotional and social needs, including those related to protected characteristics under the Equality Act.

Patient records we reviewed had patient centred individualised assessment of care needs and care plans appropriate to their needs. Care plans reflected their physical, mental, emotional and social needs, including those related to protected characteristics under the Equality Act.

We looked at the person-centred care metric within the nursing accreditation and assessment system audits. The trust provided data that showed a breakdown of metrics for 5 medical wards; 3 were rated green and 2 were rated amber for person-centred care.

Patient feedback was gathered through an initiative called ‘observe, listen and act’ with a focus on listening and acting on patient experiences. The team included staff from the patient experience team and a volunteer observer. Feedback focused on a range of areas such as person-centred care and patient safety. We looked at patient feedback reports for 9 medical wards and found most patients reported a good experience of person-centred care. For example, many patients said they were treated with dignity and respect and had been asked by staff what mattered most to them. Some areas for improvement included a delay in personal care particularly during a night shift.

We requested data on positive feedback relating to how the service met the needs of patients who were autistic, had learning or cognitive disabilities, or were living with dementia. However, this information was not provided.

The Accessible Information Standard (AIS) is a legal requirement introduced in 2016 to ensure that adults and children who have a disability, impairment or sensory loss receive information in a way that they can access and understand, and any communication support that they need is identified, recorded and provided. The service was compliant with the AIS standards. For example, staff could flag patient needs on the electronic patient record system and on patient boards. The service had a new deaf service user strategy in place that included training and resources to help guide and support staff and patients. We saw communication needs posters on the wards and staff told us they could access the translation and interpretation service.

The trusts website was accessible in over 200 languages and had accessibility tools to change text size. Patient leaflets were available on wards and online in different languages and paper copies could also be provided on request. Staff we spoke with knew how to request support from the verbal and written language interpretation services and The British Sign Language.

Some patients placed in temporary escalation spaces on AMU had experienced a lack of person-centred care. This has been reported under the safe systems, pathways and transitions and governance, management and sustainability quality statements.

Staff kept accurate and complete records to facilitate communication and coordination which promoted continuity of care. We reviewed 10 patient records and found they were complete and contemporaneous.

The service undertook medical records and documentation audits. We reviewed documentation and record keeping audit data from January to July 2025 for 8 medical wards. The overall average compliance was 90% for both audits and met the trust standards. Action plans were implemented when scores were below 80%. Most wards showed an increase in scores over time and reflected ongoing monthly improvement.

Patients said their care was reviewed by the nurses, consultants and further professionals involved in their care including dieticians, speech and language therapist and physiotherapists.

However, some patients said that communication was not always effective when moving between different wards. For example, one patient reported being transferred between two different wards due to the unavailability of a bed in the appropriate department. They said that their antibiotics had been delayed due to a breakdown in communication across the wards.

Due to the pressure on medical bed availability, we saw some patients placed on wards that were not best suited to meet their needs (also known as outliers). The trust had a clear operating procedure for medical cover of outliers. However, some staff felt that when medical staff were redeployed from their speciality ward to cover outliers on other wards, it negatively impacted on continuity of care. We spoke with a patient who was a medical outlier; they reported feeling anxious and that staff were unclear about their treatment plan.

Staff told us they could access emergency support for patients with mental health problems, learning disabilities and dementia 7 days a week. They spoke positively about 7 day multidisciplinary care, for example they could access the speech and language team daily and physiotherapists were on call during weekends as well as doctors. There was also a community therapy team that included dieticians, occupational therapists and physiotherapists available on weekdays.

Leaders for the division planned and organised services, so they met the changing needs of the population. They told us that they were significantly aware of the demographic vulnerabilities which were discussed in governance meetings and mortality and morbidity meetings.

The division was recently awarded for its good practice in delivering bowel preparation to patients’ homes prior to colonoscopy. The bowel prep team helped establish a dedicated delivery service and proactively contacted patients to confirm receipt of their preparation packs

Progress had been made to improve the layout of the wards to enhance care provision and continuity. For example, the two respiratory wards (F9 and F10) were adjacent to each other with a plan to merge them in November 2025. The merger would streamline rostering and staff cover, as both wards already operated in the same way.

The division had systems which ensured patients in need of additional support got it. Specialist lead nurses were accessible. Other support included speech and language therapy, physiotherapy, dieticians and mental health support.

We gathered feedback from partners and stakeholders. They said the service provided care that was tailored to meet the individual care and support needs across the system. They highlighted the work of the integrated discharge team who were based at the hospital to provide support and assessment 7 days a week. The team included transfer of care nurses, elderly person mental health nurse and social workers to support complex patients with timely and appropriate discharges.

A community discharge hub was also in place to support patients using care pathways to suit their needs. This meant that patients could transition from hospital to the most appropriate care setting.

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

Patients we spoke with knew how to give feedback about their experiences of care. We observed posters across the medical wards that gave information and encouragement to give feedback and how to make a formal complaint. We also saw information posters about the patient advice liaison service (PALS) process on how to make a formal complaint.

We looked at patient feedback data across 10 medical wards between 1 July 2024 and 30 June 2025. The data included responses from 1427 patients. The average score for the medical wards was that 63% of patients strongly agreed and 30% agreed that they felt listened to.

Feedback gathered through ‘observe, listen and act’ visits was thorough and provided a detailed understanding of patient experiences across the medical wards.

We reviewed the most recent feedback for 9 medical wards and overall, patient feedback was positive for all the areas assessed. Every ward had actions based on improvements suggested by patients. For example, a patient highlighted that the noise from waste bins closing disrupted rest during the night. In response, the bins had been replaced with soft closing bins to minimise noise.

Staff understood the policy on complaints and knew how to handle them. Ward managers and more senior staff had a clear knowledge of how complaints were reviewed and fed back.

Ward managers demonstrated a clear understanding of the factors contributing to complaints and the improvements made in response. For example, since our previous assessment, ward T4 now had a stable leadership in place and increased staffing. The housekeeper roles had been filled and there had been changes to how mealtimes were being managed. The ward manager told us there had been a noticeable reduction in PALS complaints and staff sickness.

At the time of our assessment, the division of medicine received a total of 29 complaints and 65 PALS complaints over the previous 6 months. Data showed that on average, the division met the target for responding to complaints within timescale (5 days). For example, on average 91% of PALS cases and 79% of complaints met the timescale which met the target of 80%. We were told that complaints compliance had been impacted by staffing resource within the department.

During our assessment we reviewed 2 recent complaint responses completed by the division. These showed the complaints were investigated and responded to thoroughly and in an open and transparent way. The complaints had been investigated by appropriate staff such as lead nurse, ward manager and overseen by the divisional director of nursing and clinical director.

However, we requested data regarding learning and improvements resulting from patient complaints; this information was not provided.

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

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

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