- NHS hospital
Conquest Hospital
Assessment report published 12 November 2026
Contents
Ratings - Urgent and emergency services
Our view of the service
Date of assessment 24 to 25 February 2026.
We carried out an unannounced assessment of urgent and emergency services at Conquest Hospital. This routine assessment was undertaken due to the length of time that had passed since the previous assessment.
We last assessed urgent and emergency services at Conquest Hospital in 2018 and rated the service as good.
We assessed this service using our single assessment framework and looked at all key questions and quality statements. We visited the paediatric emergency department, majors’ assessment and treatment area, minors’ assessment and treatment area, and the mental health assessment area. We also visited the ambulance arrival area, rapid assessment and treatment area, resuscitation area, triage, same day emergency care department (SDEC) and the urgent treatment centre (UTC).
We reviewed 23 patient records. We spoke with more than 20 members of staff, including middle and senior managers, nurses, doctors, allied health professionals, administrators, estates staff, site coordinators, healthcare assistants, housekeeping staff and pharmacy staff.
We rated urgent and emergency service as requires improvement. We found 4 breaches in regulations. The service was in breach of legal regulations in relation to people’s safe care and treatment, staffing, dignity and respect and good governance.
We found that the service had issues with patient flow, and many patients experienced prolonged delays for medical and speciality reviews. Staff could not always monitor patients safely in high‑dependency areas because of overcrowding. Leaders and the service had not made sure environments consistently protected people’s privacy and dignity, and patients did not always have timely access to time‑critical medicines. The department also lacked appropriate space to safely support patients with mental health needs.
However, staff showed kindness, compassion and professionalism in their care of patients. People we spoke with were positive about how staff treated them and recognised the pressures they were working under. We observed a supportive and caring team culture, with staff focused on doing the best they could for patients in challenging circumstances.
We have asked the provider for an action plan in response to the concerns found at this assessment.
People's experience of this service
People told us they experienced long waits at different points in their journey through the emergency department. This included waiting to be reviewed by the medical team, referral to other services and to be admitted to hospital or discharged. During this assessment people described prolonged waits across most areas of the emergency department. Patients told us the initial triage on arrival to the department was timely.
We spoke with 25 patients as well as families or carers in attendance. Most people spoke positively about their interactions with staff. People told us staff were kind and caring and provided good care and treatment. One patient we spoke with told us that the staff were “wonderful”.
We looked at the most recent CQC Urgent and emergency care survey from 2024 in which we received 256 responses from people using the service. We also looked at results from the NHS Friends and Family Test.