Royal United Hospital Bath

Ratings - Surgery

• Overall

  Good

• Safe

  Good

• Effective

  Good

• Caring

  Good

• Responsive

  Requires improvement

• Well-led

  Good

Our view of the service

We carried out an unannounced assessment of the Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust from 13th March to 14 June 2024 , which included a site visit on 20 and 21 March 2024. This was because we had received information of concern relating to specific wards regarding the safety and quality of the surgical service. For the purposes of the site visit we visited 3 wards: Forrester Brown, Pulteney and Philip Yeoman Ward. We considered information and data regarding the surgical service received from the trust; information gathered onsite as well as feedback around the experience of patients that used surgical services. At our last rated inspection of surgery service in 2016, surgical care was rated good. At this assessment, the areas we rated were good. We found there was a shared vision, strategy and culture. The trust was in the process of its cultural improvement programme and the direction of travel was positive. The trust detected risks in the care environment, however, we have asked the trust to produce an action plan to assure us that all the risks identified in the fire risk assessments have been mitigated. The trust’s audit programme monitored compliance with evidence-based good practice and care standards. The audits showed good compliance; however, we noted 2 areas where we expect to see improvement and have asked the trust to provide an action plan. These were to; improve the monitoring of patients' food and fluid intake and improve the timeliness of venous thromboembolism assessments when patients were admitted to the surgical wards. The trust had a proactive and positive culture of safety however, there was a backlog of safety incidents, some of which required investigation. We have asked the trust to provide an action plan.