Visit to St Albans City Hospital, West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust

Report - 27 February 2020

The report from our visit to Minor Injuries, Beckett ward and Outpatients at St Albans City Hospital using our legal power to Enter and View.

Our reports are public documents and we share them with the commissioners, regulators and providers of the service we are visiting.

This Enter and View visit was conducted to provide feedback to West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust (WHHT) on specific areas of St Albans City Hospital prior to the anticipated Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection in the New Year. The CQC rated St Albans City Hospital as ‘Inadequate’ in their report published in February 2019.

What we found

We spoke to 27 patients at the St Albans City Hospital that were attending the Minor Injuries Unit, Blood Testing and Outpatients clinics and staying on Beckett ward. Our overall first impression of the hospital was that it was calm, clean and organised. Staff were helpful and friendly but did not use the introduction of ‘Hello my name is ..’ , a Trust recommendation, (this may be used more when clinicians interact with patients). However this did not affect how welcomed we felt by staff.

However the layout and use of space in Outpatients together with the display of information could be improved.

We made recommendations for improvement to the Trust.

What changed as a result of our visits

  • The Trust will incorporate the recommendations around Outpatients in the planned programme of refurbishment for Outpatients.
  • Notice boards have been reviewed and updated.
  • The defective hearing loop in Minor Injuries has been repaired.
  • Clearer, more visible instructions have been implemented in Audiology.

Visit Report

West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust, St Albans visited on 5th December 2019
Download (PDF 360 KB)

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