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The Queen Elizabeth Hospital

Provider The Queen Elizabeth Hospital King's Lynn NHS Foundation Trust Type NHS Healthcare Organisation Region East Last inspected 27 Aug 2026

Location rating: Requires Improvement  View location on CQC

Location ratings by domain

Five CQC key questions

Ratings held for this CQC location under the Single Assessment Framework, assessed 27 August 2026. Ratings extracted from individual reports are shown separately below.

Safe
Requires Improvement
Effective
Requires Improvement
Caring
Good
Responsive
Requires Improvement
Well-led
Requires Improvement

CQC assessments indexed

Single Assessment Framework

From 2024 CQC rates services through ongoing assessments rather than comprehensive inspections.

Requires Improvement
The service is not performing as well as it should and we have told the service how it must improve.
The Queen Elizabeth Hospital is a district general hospital located in Kings Lynn. The hospital provides medical services across West and North Norfolk, North Cambridgeshire and South Lincolnshire. The hospital has approximately 500 inpatient beds across 22 core wards and employs over 4000 staff.We assessed Queen Elizabeth Hospital on 28 and 29 April 2026. We assessed 2 assessment service groups at this location, urgent and emergency care and medical care (including older people).We carried out comprehensive assessments for both assessment service groups inspecting all 34 quality statements across the key …

Ratings by service

Medical care (Including older people's care)
Requires Improvement
Jan 2026
Urgent and emergency services
Requires Improvement
Jan 2026
Surgery
Requires Improvement
Jan 2026

Regulatory breaches & enforcement

Current-framework "must do" equivalent

Breaches of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014, stated verbatim in the CQC assessment.

Requirement notice Overall
In addition, it was to review the progress made against the requirement notice that was served to the provider following the inspection in January 2020.
· 27 Aug 2026 · CQC source
Warning notice Caring
During this assessment we found breaches in regulations relating to safe care and treatment and dignity and respect, a warning notice was served.
Regulation: Regulation 10 (Dignity and respect) · 27 Aug 2026 · CQC source
Warning notice Overall
These concerns resulted in a breach of regulation in which we served a warning notice.
· 27 Aug 2026 · CQC source

Breaches identified (5)

Breach Safe
We found breaches in safe care and treatment, and good governance.
Regulation: Regulation 12 (Safe care and treatment) · 27 Aug 2026
Breach Caring
At this assessment we found breaches relating to safe care and treatment and dignity and respect.
Regulation: Regulation 10 (Dignity and respect) · 27 Aug 2026
Breach Well-led
We found breaches of the regulations in relation to documentation of mental capacity assessments, mitigation of identified risk, mandatory training compliance and lack of medicines management and good governance.
Regulation: Regulation 17 (Good governance) · 27 Aug 2026
Breach Safe
The service breached legal regulations relating to safe care and treatment, and to premises and equipment.
Regulation: Regulation 12 (Safe care and treatment) · 8 Jul 2026
Breach Overall
During our assessment, we found concerns which resulted in a breach of regulation.
· 8 Jul 2026

Most recent report indexed for actions

The date and rating here are from an individual report, not necessarily the location's latest assessment. Report ratings are extracted with AI; verify the original PDF.

Type: Location
Date: 1 March 2024
Rating extracted from this report: Requires improvement
Actions indexed: 5 must-do 5 should-do

Read this inspection PDF

AI-extracted 3 Jun 2026

Earlier inspection findings

pre-2024 framework · 5 must-do 5 should-do

Must-do actions (5)

Legal requirements based on regulation breaches identified during inspection.

Must-do action 1 of 5
Must do
Safe
The service must ensure staff complete and document fresh eyes observations in line with national and trust guidance.
Regulation: Regulation 12(1)(2)(a)(b)
⚠ WelookedattheCTGandfresheyesauditinformationforJanuarytoSeptember2023andfoundfresheyeswerenotcompletedoftenenough.Althoughthiswasimproving,inSeptember2023fresheyescheckswereonlyrecordedascompleted53%ofthetime.Againstatrusttargetof90%
Must-do action 2 of 5
Must do
Safe
The service must ensure staff escalate and document adverse baby observations.
Regulation: Regulation 12(1)(2)(a)(b)
⚠ JustoverhalfoftheNEWTTscoresthatrequiredescalation,hadbeenappropriatelyescalated.Ofthosethathadnotbeenescalated,halfhadno documentationtoshowwhetheranyactionhadbeentakenatall.
Must-do action 3 of 5
Must do
Safe
The service must ensure women and birthing people are seen within appropriate timelines by medical staff when presenting to maternity triage.
Regulation: Regulation 12(1)(2)[MA1](a)(b)
⚠ However,only60%ofwomenwhoneededtobereviewedbyadoctorsawonewithinthecorrecttimeframe.
Must-do action 4 of 5
Must do
Safe
The service should ensure staff are up to date with maternity mandatory training modules.
Regulation: Regulation 18(1)(2)(a)
⚠ Recordsshowed that66%ofmidwiferystaffhadcompletedtherequiredmaternityspecificmandatorytrainingcoursesagainstatrusttargetof80%.Complianceinthemidwife-ledbirthingunitscoredabove80%.However,theoverallmandatorytrainingcompliancerateformaternitysupportworkers(MSW)was70%andtheoverallmaternityspecificmandatorytrainingcompliancerateformedicalstaffwas68%.Thiswasbelowthetrustcompliancetargetof80%.
Must-do action 5 of 5
Must do
Well-led
The service should ensure all staff are supported through supervision and appraisals to carry out their duties.
Regulation: Regulation 18(1)(2)(a)
⚠ Datashowed76%ofmidwiferystaffhadreceivedanappraisalintheprevious12months,againstatrusttargetof90%.

Should-do actions (5)

Recommended improvements to enhance service quality.

Should-do action 1 of 5
Should do
Safe
The service should ensure staff whomay have to provide care for out-of-scope events are giving training to do so.
Should-do action 2 of 5
Should do
Well-led
The service should ensure all incidents are investigated in a timely way.
Should-do action 3 of 5
Should do
Well-led
The service should ensure maternity telephone triage monitoring allows for detailed data collection.
Should-do action 4 of 5
Should do
Safe
The service should ensure discarded controlled medicines are recorded in line with trust guidance.
Should-do action 5 of 5
Should do
Safe
The service should ensure emergency equipment is checked daily in line with their procedures.