- NHS hospital
The Princess Royal Hospital
Assessment report published 21 August 2026
Contents
Ratings - Urgent and emergency services
Our view of the service
We carried out this inspection as part of the Urgent and Emergency Care Winter Pathway programme. We inspected the Emergency Department (ED) on 3 and 4 March 2026 with a team of a CQC inspectors, nurse specialist advisor and medical specialist advisor.
We inspected 25 quality statements across the safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led key questions and have combined the scores for these areas with scores from the last inspection to give the rating. During the last inspection there were many breaches stating that the trust must ensure to make improvements; we reviewed all these breaches during this inspection, and we found many areas required the improvements had been met. There were 3 new breaches in this inspection around long delays, premises and environment. We have requested an action plan, this will be requested upon publication of the final report.
People's experience of this service
Patients, their family or carers were mainly positive about staff, saying they treated them with warmth and kindness and provided effective care and treatment. They said they were seen by trained nursing staff to find out more about why they had attended the emergency department (triage) or if arriving by ambulance were also seen in a rapid assessment and triage service by a nurse and/or a doctor.
Records showed they were usually given the tests they needed promptly, and felt staff were on hand if they needed them for help or support.
People said they did not feel anxious about raising concerns. Most said communication with them was good, but some people said they would have appreciated more information more often.