St Helier Hospital and Queen Mary's Hospital for Children

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

People could not always access care, support and treatment they needed when they needed it. Several patients had been in the ED for significant lengths of time and the availability of appropriate clinical spaces to assess, treat and care for patients was often limited.

However, patients were provided with relevant information in formats that were tailored to their needs. The service made it easy for people to share feedback and ideas or raise complaints about their care.

We have not awarded this service a score for Responsive.

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

The service did not always make sure people were at the centre of their care and treatment choices and they did not always work in partnership with people, to decide how to respond to any relevant changes in people’s needs.

The ED was at full capacity during our inspection and the availability of appropriate clinical spaces to assess, treat and care for patients was often limited. The service had a significant number of patients with “decision to admit” (DTA) who were still in the department due to lack of beds on the ward. For example, there were 49 patients with DTA in the ED by 8am on 2 December 2025. This meant patients who required specialist care were still in the ED and this impacted on the ED’s ability to admit patients. We observed that most patients in the majors’ area were patients with DTA and newly admitted patients were often cared for on the corridors.

Patients were in the ED for significant lengths of time without access to shower facilities. Patients who required access to shower facilities were escorted to the acute medical unit.

There were clear pathways for people attending the ED. Staff completed individual risk assessments including delirium screening, falls risk assessment and pressure ulcer assessment. ED staff were able to access support from the psychiatric liaison team, which had worked with the ED to develop a flowchart to support staff to stream patients directly to the psychiatric liaison team.

We did not look at Care provision, Integration and continuity during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Responsive.

The service supplied appropriate, accurate and up-to-date information in formats that were tailored to individual needs.

Staff provided patients, their families, and carers with information that was accessible, safe, secure, and supported their rights and choices. Most patients and relatives informed us they were provided with relevant information about their condition, follow up care and treatment as required. However, some relatives felt they were not given enough information about their family member’s care.

People’s individual needs to have information in an accessible way were identified, recorded, highlighted and shared. This included making reasonable adjustments for people with disabilities, interpreting and translating for people who did not speak English as a first language.

The service made it easy for people to share feedback and ideas, or raise complaints about their care, treatment and support. Staff involved people in decisions about their care and told them what had changed as a result.

Patients and their families knew how to give feedback about their experiences of care including how to raise any concerns or issues and could do so in a range of accessible ways.

The service had a complaints policy, which provided guidance to staff on the processes they should follow in the event of a patient complaint. Staff understood the complaint policy and knew how to escalate concerns. The services posted information about the complaint process in waiting areas.

Managers investigated complaints and identified themes. Managers shared feedback from complaints with staff and learning was used to improve the service. For example, following a missed diagnosis, the trust introduced an electronic record system which supports the facility for all x-ray and scan reports to require acknowledgement by the requesting clinician that they have been read and actioned. The case was also presented to share learning at the mortality and morbidity meeting.

The service did not always make sure that people could access the care, support and treatment they needed when they needed it.

People experienced significant delays in the ED. Patients with mental health needs were the most impacted due to long waits for transfer to specialist mental health services.

During the period of our on-site assessment, a patient with mental health needs was in the ED for up to 160 hours. One patient with mental health needs had been on a recliner chair in the rapid assessment and treatment area for over 100 hours.

Between June and November 2025, the average length of stay for patients presenting with mental health issues was 24.7 hours. Between September and December 2025, over 95% of patients were seen by the psychiatric liaison team within 1 hour in line with the trust target.

On the first day of our assessment, 31 patients were waiting for more than 8 hours, and 27 patients were waiting for more than 12 hours.

On the second day of our assessment, the longest wait to be seen by a doctor was 22 hours. There were significant waits in the ED with 17 patients waiting to be seen by a doctor, 52 were waiting for speciality review and 49 patients were waiting for an inpatient bed. 57 patients waiting for more than 8 hours while 51 patients were waiting for more than 12 hours.

Between October 2024 and September 2025, the average length of stay was mostly above 10 days. The service was not meeting the performance standard to admit, transfer or discharge 78% of patients within 4 hours of their arrival in the ED. Data provided by the trust showed that 69% of patients spent less than 4 hours in the ED between December 2024 and November 2025. During the same period the 4-hour performance for patients admitted was below 10%.

The service achieved mostly below 20% performance for ED 12 hour waits between October 2024 and August 2025 with 80% for admitted patients (going down to less than 65% in August 2025) and less than 15% for non-admitted patients.

The 4-hour performance for mental health patients was mostly below 45% between October 2024 and August 2025. This fell to below 30% between March and August 2025.

The department was not meeting the national standard for patients who arrived by ambulance to be registered, handed over and transferred off the ambulance trolley within 15 minutes of the ambulance arriving at the ED. The average ambulance handover was consistently above recommended guidelines. Between October and April 2025, ambulance handover was mostly over 30 minutes, with high averages of 40 - 45 minutes between November 2024 and January 2025, and in April 2025. Ambulance handover times averaged between 25 minutes to 32 minutes between May 2025 to October 2025.

We observed some patients remained on ambulance trolleys for over 2 hours during our assessment.

We did not look at Equity in experiences and outcomes during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Responsive.

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