- NHS hospital
Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital
Report from 29 May 2025 assessment
Contents
Ratings - Urgent and emergency services
Our view of the service
We rated the service as Requires Improvement. We found 2 breaches of the regulations in relation to safe care and treatment, and good governance.
Date of assessment: 1 July to 31 August 2025. We conducted a comprehensive responsive risk assessment of Urgent and Emergency Services at the Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital. We did this because we received information of concern regarding a lack of staff, poor speaking up culture, and an unsuitable environment for the provision of mental health care.
During our inspection, we found concerns around the management of risk, particularly relating to documentation, public access to items that could be used for self-harm, and a poor compliance with mandatory training. There were issues with care continuity and equity in access for specific groups of patients who experienced inequitable delays, leading them to receiving care in an inappropriate setting. However, the trust was doing all they could to address this where some of these shortfalls sat outside of their control. Staff consistently delivered compassionate tailored care, maintained good communication, and involved patients in improvements. There were established care pathways, staff had a good understanding of safeguarding procedures and acted on safeguarding concerns, different teams worked well together sharing information and identified risk, and we observed kind and compassionate interactions between staff and patients. Overall, we identified a governance team that were working hard to make service improvements, but some shortfalls meant they did not always proactively respond to risks to further improve the quality and safety of the service.
People's experience of this service
Our inspection revealed a mixed picture in relation to patient experience. We identified staff delivering kind and compassionate care that was largely individualised and person centred. Patients reported that staff were very caring, polite and understanding, with staff demonstrating efforts to tailor care for diverse groups, including children, those with disabilities, and travelling communities. The service used specialist resources to facilitate personalised care, but some basic needs were overlooked such as access to water and a lack of patient tables. Patient dignity was compromised in the Rapid Assessment and Treatment area where the sink used for handwashing was located in a patient’s bed space. Some people experienced prolonged waiting times, with patients presenting with mental health conditions facing inequitable delays.