- NHS hospital
Northampton General Hospital
Assessment report published 23 March 2026
Ratings - Critical care
Our view of the service
Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust provide critical care services at Northampton General Hospital for patients requiring Level 2 and Level 3 care (level 3 beds require 1 nurse to each patient and level 2 beds 1 nurse between 2 patients). This includes a general intensive care unit (ICU), and critical care outreach. The new CCU opened on June 29, 2022. The ICU has 16 specialist beds of which five are isolation rooms fitted with clean air technology designed to prevent the spread of illnesses and support patients with immune issues.
ICU care is staffed by a multi-disciplinary team who provide one-to-one, or sometimes two-to-one, care for patients and their families, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
The critical care outreach team provides a trust-wide service to all adult wards. The team is also responsible for following up patients when they move from ICU to a ward. The service sees and cares for patients who are very ill or at risk of becoming very ill, requiring close observation, monitoring and life support.
A team of 2 CQC inspectors and a specialist advisor visited the service on 19 August 2025. We spoke to 23 staff (including doctors, nurses, managers, pharmacists, allied health physiotherapists and housekeeping staff) and 1 patient. We looked at 5 sets of patients notes and attended the multidisciplinary ward round.
The last inspection to Northampton General Hospital critical care was undertaken in July and August 2017 and was rated good overall, with a good rating in all key questions. This assessment reviewed the safe and well led domains only. We rated both safe and well led as good.
People's experience of this service
A patient told us staff were kind, compassionate and carefully explained treatment including events. We observed staff also doing this with other patients even if they were very ill and unresponsive. Between 1 October 2024 and 30 September 2025 98.8% of people who completed the friends and family feedback (46 people) said they received either very good or good care whilst in critical care.