Northumbria Healthcare NHS Trust ranked 'better than expected' by patients

The Care Quality Commission has published results of the 2021 Adult Inpatients Survey, which covers all 134 NHS acute and specialist hospital trusts, placing the Northumbria Trust in ‘better than expected’ category.

The questions were asked to qualifying patients who used one of 10 Northumbria hospitals, including Alnwick Infirmary, Berwick Infirmary, Blyth Community Hospital and Wansbeck General.

Across the 47 questions asked to patients, the trust’s scores were ‘better than expected’ in 32 and ‘similar to others’ for the remaining 15.

During the survey patients also ranked Northumbria Healthcare better than most trusts in six out of 10 key themes– admission to hospital, the hospital and ward, nurses, care and treatment, leaving hospital, and overall experience.

In the remaining four domains, the trust was somewhat better in one (doctors) and the same as other trusts in the other three (operations and procedures, feedback on care, respect and dignity).

Sir James Mackey, chief executive at Northumbria Healthcare, said: “We pride ourselves on our commitment to outstanding patient care and we know how hard our staff work to ensure that our patients get the treatment and experience they deserve.

“These results are for our hospitals only and hospitals have been under increasing pressure in recent times, like the rest of the NHS. So, it is reassuring to see that, in spite of these pressures, our staff have continued to focus on the needs of patients and delivered excellent standards of care.”