Royal Shrewsbury Hospital

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• 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

This means we looked for evidence that the service met people’s needs.

At our last assessment we rated this key question Good. At this assessment the rating has remained Good.

This meant people’s needs were met through good organisation and delivery.

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.

. We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. The service made sure people were at the centre of their care and treatment choices and they decided, in partnership with people, how to respond to any relevant changes in people’s needs.

Staff provided patients with information about risks and benefits of examinations to allow them to make choices about their care.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. The service understood the diverse health and care needs of people and their local communities, so care was joined-up, flexible and supported choice and continuity.

The service offered a walk-in chest X-Ray clinic between the hours of 1 and 4pm, allowing patients flexibility. All of the patients we spoke with who used this service commented on how quick and easy it was. Leaders gave good examples of joined up care. One such example was the computed tomography virtual colonoscopy consent clinics. Patients attended a one-stop clinic where they spoke with staff, received bowel preparation and were given the date for their scan. Leaders said the introduction of the clinics had led to fewer patients not attending and fewer inappropriate bookings.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. The service supplied appropriate, accurate and up-to-date information in formats that were tailored to individual needs.

The service provided information about appointments to patients in letters, and clerical staff followed up with telephone calls. We observed staff explaining examinations to patients in a way they understood and allowed them to ask questions. Staff kept patients’ loved ones informed and involved in their care. For example, while relatives accompanying patients for breast imaging were requested to wait in the waiting room during clinical procedures, they were invited in to participate in conversations with staff. However, we saw little evidence of information such as leaflets in languages other than English or formats such as easy-read.

Staff made notifications to external bodies as needed.

We scored the service as 2. The evidence showed some shortfalls. The service did not always make it easy for people to share feedback and ideas, or raise complaints about their care, treatment and support. They did not always involve people in decisions about their care or tell them what had changed as a result.

We observed blank patient feedback forms in work areas throughout the service, although staff said they provided forms on request, rather than actively seeking feedback. We did not see evidence of a radiology patient questionnaire for this site since 2023. There had been 5 complaints across both sites of the service in the 12 months before the inspection. Three complaints were regarding communication, and managers fed back to staff in huddles. The other complaints were regarding discrepancies in reports which were shared as per the discrepancy process. We viewed minutes of the latest patient and carer experience panel meeting from December 2025. Results of the National Cancer Patient Experience Report were discussed; “Free text comments were mixed, with positive feedback on treatment but negative feedback mainly about wait times, especially for Radiology”, although the panel acknowledged that the impact of investments in radiology would not be seen until 2026.

We scored the service as 2. The evidence showed some shortfalls. The service did not always make sure that people could access the care, support and treatment they needed when they needed it.

At the time of inspection, patients did not have 24 hour access to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). This meant that if a patient presented with suspected cauda equina syndrome, a neurological emergency where nerve roots at the lower end of the spinal cord are severely compressed, out of hours, they may not receive an MRI within 4 hours of request. This is not in line with guidance from Getting it Right First Time. However, the service was in the process of moving to an overnight service, with a standard operating procedure written by staff. The nuclear medicine service received inpatients from the Princess Royal Hospital as the service was unavailable at this location. Patients did not have access to positron emission tomography in the region and had to travel to neighbouring counties for these examinations.

However, the premises were generally accessible. There was an accessible changing room in MRI in the Evolution suite, although some changing cubicles in the main X-Ray department were small. Leaders told us that because of feedback from a patient questionnaire, bariatric chairs and chairs with high armrests were purchased for the department. Staff could refer patients who could not tolerate conventional MRI, for reasons such as severe claustrophobia or the inability to lie flat, to an open or upright scanner.

Patients reported a negative experience regarding car parking, describing the need to leave home significantly earlier to secure a space and avoid missing appointments.

We scored the service as 2. The evidence showed some shortfalls. Staff and leaders did not always actively listen to information about people who are most likely to experience inequality in experience or outcomes. This meant people’s care was not always tailored in response to this.

Staff were trained in equality, diversity, inclusion and human rights and 96% of staff had received up to date training. There were 3 tiers of dementia awareness training, and staff were compliant at 99%, 87% and 82%, respectively. The e-learning element of training on learning disability and autism was also mandatory for all staff, and 86% of staff were compliant with the training at the time of inspection. However, only 12% and 2% of staff had received Tier 1 and 2 training which were face to face sessions. Leaders explained that double appointments could be given to patient with additional needs. Ambient lighting could be used to make the environment more inviting for autistic patients and children, and there was a television in the nuclear medicine scan room which could serve as a distraction.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. People were given information to support their future/ongoing care.

Reporting staff liaised with referrers and other staff outside of the service to ensure patients received the ongoing care required. Staff provided patients with information about how and when they would receive results. However, both clinical and clerical staff felt unsure that they were given accurate information regarding waiting times for examinations and results, with 1 staff member saying that the service needed to be “more transparent and regular” regarding updates.