Top Marks for the Royal Surrey

The Royal Surrey County Hospital has achieved the highest possible rating for its services in the Healthcare Commission’s 2007/08 Annual Health Check.

In the results published today the Royal Surrey has achieved an ‘Excellent’ rating for Quality of Services, which covers areas such as patient safety, cleanliness and waiting times. This result now puts the Trust in the top 26% in the country.  In addition the Trust has scored a ‘Good’ rating for its Use of Resources which looks at how well an organisation manages its finances.

Both scores are an improvement on last year’s ratings of ‘Fair’ for both Quality of Services and Use of Resources.  The Healthcare Commission has this year commended the Trust for making significant improvements and the excellent quality of service to patients.  The continued improvements in managing finances over the last two years, has also been recognised. 

Chief Executive Nick Moberly praised and thanked staff for their hard work over the last year.  He said:

“This is a truly fantastic result for the Royal Surrey and is recognition of the dedication of all our staff to providing the best possible care and services to our patients.

“We have made significant improvements over the last few years including more than halving our rates of MRSA infection, meeting the GP referral to treatment within 18 weeks target, treating more than 99% of patients within four hours in A&E and providing the majority of our patients with diagnostic tests within two weeks.  We have also worked hard to secure our financial position and in the last financial year we delivered a surplus of £2.5 million. 

“People in Guildford and Surrey can be very proud of their hospital and reassured that they will get excellent care if they, their families and friends need it.  We are also moving towards becoming an NHS Foundation Trust and we hope that this result will mean that our patients and the local community will have even more reason to want to support us by becoming members.

“We now need to work hard to ensure that we maintain this result next year and that we respond to the needs of our patients and put them first.”

As part of the Annual Health Check, the Trust was given scores for areas that are of most concern and interest to patients and the public.  These covered: safety and cleanliness, standard of care, waiting to be seen, dignity and respect, keeping the public healthy and good management.  The Trust scored top marks in all the categories apart from safety and cleanliness where the score was 12 out of 13.

1. Chief Executive Nick Moberly and Director of Nursing and Operations Sue Lewis are available for interview.
2. The full Annual Health Check results are available on the Healthcare Commission website:  www.healthcarecommission.org.uk
3. The Royal Surrey’s new website is now live at:  www.royalsurrey.nhs.uk
4. For media enquiries and more information please contact Lisa Ward, Head of Communications and Marketing Tel:  01483 408337/07525 011989.