The Care Quality Commission has rated The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust as Outstanding.
It was rated Outstanding for being effective, caring, responsive and well-led. It was rated Good for being safe, following the inspection in September 2019.
At its previous inspection Royal Marsden, which has sites in central London and in Sutton, was also rated Outstanding overall, but this time it improved its effective category rating from Good to Outstanding.
Professor Ted Baker, England’s Chief Inspector of Hospitals, said: “The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust is a beacon of Outstanding practice. It was Outstanding overall before but has improved by achieving Outstanding in four of the main categories CQC rate.
“It is a well-run centre of excellence in the study and treatment of cancer and is known worldwide for the work that it does.
“The trust safely used innovative and pioneering approaches to provide evidence-based care. Research at the trust had strong patient partnership and national collaboration.”
Inspectors found that the trust set the standards and practice guidelines for cancer nursing nationally through its 2019 Royal Marsden Manual of Cancer Nursing Procedures. Over 90% of acute NHS trusts in England also use the electronic version of The Royal Marsden Manual of Clinical Nursing Procedures, which covers all aspects of nursing. At the time of CQC’s visit, the trust was in the process of launching the updated tenth edition of this manual.
Staff were committed to working collaboratively. They supported each other to provide excellent care. For example, the trust won the ‘nursing practice award’ at the Laing Buisson awards 2018 for its multidisciplinary team approach to head and neck cancers.
It was easy for people to give feedback and raise concerns about their care. The service treated concerns and complaints seriously, investigated them and shared lessons learned with all staff. The service included patients in the investigation of complaints.
The trust celebrated safe innovation. It was committed to improving services by learning from when things went well and when they went wrong, promoting training, and research.
Staff were proud of the organisation as a place to work and spoke highly of the culture. The trust was one of the best performing in England in the NHS Staff Survey 2018. Staff felt respected, supported and valued. They were focused on the needs of patients receiving care.
Leaders and staff actively and openly engaged with patients, staff, equality groups, the public and local organisations to plan and manage services. They collaborated with partner organisations to help improve services for patients.
The trust had an experienced leadership team with the skills, abilities, and commitment to provide high-quality services There was compassionate, inclusive and effective leadership. Board members demonstrated the high levels of experience, capacity and capability needed to deliver excellent and sustainable care.
The trust demonstrated a strong commitment to staff wellbeing and recently ran a pilot “compassion fatigue” training programme, which 130 members of staff completed. The trust aspired to lead the way with this training course and share this outstanding practice with other organisations.
The culture was centred on the needs and experiences of patients. Excellent patient care that exceeded expectations was a top priority of the trust. It performed better than expected in national patient surveys and was ranked third in England for overall patient experience in the Care Quality Commission Adult Inpatient Survey 2018.
The trust still wanted to improve patient experience further, with a vision of all patients experiencing excellent care and treatment.
You can read the report in full when it is published on CQC’s website at: www.cqc.org.uk/provider/RPY
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