- NHS hospital
Charing Cross Hospital
Assessment report published 14 January 2026
Contents
Ratings
Our view of the service
Date of assessment: 16 October 2025. Charing Cross Hospital provides a range of NHS hospital services. We carried out an unannounced focused assessment of medical care (including older people’s care) in response to patient safety concerns following 2 serious patient safety incidents that occurred within a 2 month period. We assessed the key questions of safe, caring and well led, and rated the service as Good. We did not assess the key questions of effective or responsive as part of this assessment. The rating of medical care (including older people’s care) has been combined with the ratings of the other services from the last assessments. See our previous reports to get a full picture of all the other services at Charing Cross Hospital. The rating of Charing Cross Hospital has remained good, however we identified a breach of regulations in relation to Safe Care and Treatment.
In our assessment of medical care (including older people’s care), we found the service had a mainly proactive and positive culture of safety, based on openness and honesty. Staff provided care to meet people’s needs that was mostly safe, supportive and enabled people to do the things that mattered to them.
The service listened to and understood people’s needs, views and wishes. Staff responded to people’s needs in the moment and acted to minimise any discomfort, concern or distress. Staff took account of people’s strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics.
Leaders were visible, knowledgeable, and supportive. Staff were treated equally, and staff with protected characteristics felt supported. Staff understood their roles and responsibilities. There was a culture and structure for continuous improvement being embedded into the service.
However, the service did not have adequate systems and processes in place to understand what being safe meant to people. The service did not have adequate safeguarding training or up to date policies in place.
The service did not always detect and control potential risks in the care environment and did not always assess or manage the risk of infection. Not all staff were aware of the trust’s vision and strategy or were aware of the freedom to speak up guardian.