Darlington Memorial Hospital

Ratings

• Overall

  Good

• Safe

  Requires improvement

• Effective

  Good

• Caring

  Good

• Responsive

  Good

• Well-led

  Good

Our view of the service

County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust provides healthcare services to a population of 650,000 people across County Durham and Darlington, and surrounding areas. It sits within the North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care System (ICS).

It is registered to provide the following regulated activities: Treatment of Disease, Disorder or Injury, Surgical Procedures, Diagnostic and Screening Procedures.

Darlington Memorial Hospital (DMH) has approximately 433 beds and provides a range of NHS hospital services. This assessment looked at surgery services due to aged rating and emerging risk. We conducted this unannounced assessment on 7 to 9 October 2025. We assessed 33 quality statements across the safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led key questions.

We visited clinical areas and spoke with patients, their families and carers. We looked at health care records and a range of policies, procedures and other documents relating to the running of the service.

We spoke with 110 staff, including senior leaders, managers, clinical staff and non-clinical workers across the care group.

We rated the surgery service as requires improvement.

The rating of surgery has been combined with the ratings of the other services from the last inspections. See our previous reports to get a full picture of all the other services at DMH.

At this assessment, we looked at the surgery service. The ratings from the surgery service have been combined with ratings of the other services at DMH. The overall location rating for the hospital is Good.

Please see our previous reports to get a full picture of all other services at DMH.