Updated 24 September 2025
Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (LTHT) is an NHS acute Trust consisting of Leeds General Infirmary, St James's University Hospital, Leeds Children's Hospital, Chapel Allerton Hospital, Wharfedale Hospital, Seacroft Hospital and Leeds Dental Institute.
Services include acute medicine, urgent and emergency care, maternity services, acute frailty units, rehabilitation services, dental services and surgical services to a local population of approximately 800,000 people across the Leeds locality. As a tertiary care trust, it provides specialist services to the wider population outside of the Leeds area.
The trust employs around 22,000 people across the sites.
We last inspected whether the trust was well led or not in 2019. At that time, we rated them as Good.
Following concerns identified during a recent inspection of the trust’s maternity and neonatal services, we wanted to assess how well led the trust was overall. At that time, we asked the trust to take urgent action and also, issued a section 29A Warning Notice.
Our assessment of Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust included an on-site visit on 17 to 19 June 2025. We also held focus groups with staff members and observed a board meeting.
We assessed all 8 of the quality statements in the well-led key question used when assessing an NHS trust in the single assessment framework.
Each quality statement assessed is awarded a score. Details on how we score can be found on our website: https://www.cqc.org.uk/about-us/how-we-do-our-job/ratings
You can find further information about how we carried out our assessments at: https://www.cqc.org.uk/about-us/how-we-do-our-job/what-we-do-inspection
We looked for evidence that there was an inclusive and positive culture of continuous learning and improvement that was based on meeting the needs of people who used services and wider communities. We checked that leaders proactively supported staff and collaborated with partners to deliver care that was safe, integrated, person-centred, sustainable reduced inequalities.
This is the first assessment for this service under our single assessment framework. We rated the well led key question as requires improvement.
Whilst we found examples of leaders who were inclusive, transparent and fostered a culture of transparency, learning and improvement this was not consistent in all areas. We found examples of leadership where significant improvement was required to support and enable the culture aspired to in the Leeds Way.
Organisational and governance structures had been in place for a long period with little review or refresh, for example the clinical service units (CSUs) had been in place for 13 years. Executives told us, that over the coming months there will be an opportunity with the new Board positions in place, to look at those structures, and to consider if there would be an alternative and more effective model.
There was a lack of consistency in escalation and reporting both from the CSUs and through executive mechanisms and associated board committees to the board. There appeared to be some confusion regarding roles, responsibilities and accountabilities between board committee level and the CSUs, which impacted the effectiveness of governance and oversight.
The trust placed a high degree of importance on partnerships and community working and took a pride in fostering research, innovation and partnership working.
Amongst most senior leaders there was a coherent consensus of where the trust was in terms of its strategic ambition and operational delivery and how it would need to improve to deliver consistently care that was safe, integrated, person-centred and sustainable.
At this inspection we found breaches of regulation in relation to Complaints, Good Governance and Staffing.