The Princess Royal Hospital

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• Overview
• Kindness, compassion and dignity
• Treating people as individuals
• Independence, choice and control
• Responding to people’s immediate needs
• Workforce wellbeing and enablement

This means we looked for evidence that the service involved people and treated them with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.

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

This meant people were supported and treated with dignity and respect; and involved as partners in their care.

We have not awarded this service a score for Caring.

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

The evidence showed a good standard. The service always treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity. Staff treated colleagues from other organisations with kindness and respect.

Patients fed back that staff were friendly, kind and introduced themselves. They said staff maintained their privacy, dignity and confidentiality of information. Matrons audited privacy and dignity as part of monthly quality audits and all wards scored 100% for questions pertaining to appropriate screening.

We observed staff treating patients with kindness and respect when caring for and treating them. Staff feeding patients showed patience when doing so and ensured they spoke so that patients who were hard of hearing could lip read. We viewed many examples of thank you cards and letters from patients, their families and former colleagues and students. In the latest Friends and Family test from April 2025 to February 2026, 96% of medical inpatients reported that they had a very good or good overall experience.

We did not look at Treating people as individuals during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Caring.

We did not look at Independence, choice and control during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Caring.

The evidence showed some shortfalls. Staff did not always respond to people’s needs in the moment or act to minimise any discomfort, concern or distress.

Most patients said that staff responded to call bells quickly despite appearing very busy, though some said this was variable. Furthermore we noted that some patients in escalation bedspaces did not have call bells. This was fed back to senior leaders. Patients said they got pain relief in a timely manner, with a patient on ward 36 saying staff had “gone out of their way to make sure (they) had it”. In the last 3 nursing quality assurance audits, 100% of patient answered yes to “Do you think the hospital did everything they could to help control your pain?”

The evidence showed some shortfalls. Staff generally felt respected and valued and could work flexibly but were not always aware of what was offered to support their wellbeing.

Staff we spoke with generally felt respected, supported and valued by the service and their teams, though some staff felt that their medical specialities were less of a focus of attention for the trust than “high profile” services such as the Emergency Department.

Results of the 2025 General Medical Council training survey showed that trainee doctors scored local teaching below average, however a resident doctor we spoke with on ward 17, respiratory ward, was very happy with their team, environment and said they received all the training opportunities they needed. Staff we asked said that they could work flexibly. We viewed 2025 staff survey results and 49% of staff would recommend the organisation as a place to work, although this figure covered staff from both medical care and the emergency department.

We saw examples of staff recognition in the service including ‘moving to excellence’ awards on display. The service had a staff psychology service, and an employee assistance programme which provided 24/7 access to wellbeing and counselling professionals. Staff we spoke with were unsure what was available for their wellbeing, though 1 staff member mentioned they could get support from occupational health if needed.