Hospital improving but must do more, inspectors say

Inspectors have found improvements at the Countess of Chester Hospital but said it still needed to improve in areas, particularly its urgent and emergency services.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has released the results of its most recent inspection to review the hospital's progress since a warning notice was issued in February 2025.

Inspectors visiting last October found five regulation breaches and said under-staffing - especially in urgent and emergency services - was "causing issues" including "long waits for triage in its A&E".

The BBC has contacted the Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust for comment.

The CQC inspected medical, end-of-life and urgent and emergency services and has asked the trust for an action plan on how improvements will be made.

The watchdog said its urgent and emergency services rating had moved up from "inadequate" to "requires improvement", while its end-of-life and medical services ratings had both gone up from "requires improvement" to "good".

The overall rating for the hospital remains as "requires improvement".

Inspectors said the paediatric emergency department did not always meet recommended staffing standards for children's emergency care and also found a shortage of consultants was "impacting timely care".

However, the report highlighted a "notable change" in the culture of the urgent and emergency department, with staff interactions being kind and compassionate.

It also said the trust had improved the environment used to provide care for people with mental health needs.

Gill Hodgson-Reilly, of the CQC, said it was pleased to see improvements but added more were "still needed", especially in urgent and emergency services.

She said: "Staff worked hard and showed kindness and compassion, prioritising safety and managing risks as best they could, but it was obvious under-staffing was causing issues.

"For example, people were experiencing long waits for triage in A&E due to the number of assessments and tasks being completed by a single nurse.

"This increased the risk to people in waiting areas and created additional pressure on individual nurses who told us they were concerned about the volume of tasks required of them."

She praised the trust for implementing a specialist out-of-hours advice line with another hospital and hospice to support staff in the end-of-life services after the inspection.

She praised medical services too, said leaders had improved some areas, while the CQC "received positive feedback from people and their relatives about their care".

Hodgson-Reilly said it had shared the findings with the trust's management and they were aware of what improvements were needed.

She added it would continue to monitor the trust, including through future inspections "to ensure people are safe while the necessary improvements are made".

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