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King's College Hospital

Provider King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust Type NHS Healthcare Organisation Region London Last inspected 28 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 28 August 2026. Ratings extracted from individual reports are shown separately below.

Safe
Requires Improvement
Effective
Good
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.
King's College Hospital is part of King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and offers a wide range of hospital services to people living in Southwark and Lambeth. This assessment looked at urgent and emergency care and children and young peoples services to assess the quality of the care received by patients using those services. The rating of urgent and emergency care and children and young people's services have been combined with the ratings of the other services from the previous assessments. Our assessment of children and young people's services focused …

Ratings by service

Services for children & young people
Requires Improvement
Mar 2026
Surgery
Good
Feb 2026
Urgent and emergency services
Requires Improvement
Feb 2026
Maternity
Requires Improvement
Jan 2025
Maternity
Requires Improvement
Jan 2025
Maternity
Requires Improvement
Jan 2025
Medical care (Including older people's care)
Requires Improvement
Jan 2025
Medical care (Including older people's care)
Requires Improvement
Jan 2025
Medical care (Including older people's care)
Requires Improvement
Jan 2025
Services for children & young people
Requires Improvement
Jan 2025
Services for children & young people
Requires Improvement
Jan 2025
Services for children & young people
Requires Improvement
Jan 2025

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.

Breaches identified (10)

Breach Overall
During this assessment, we identified breaches of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014.
· 28 Aug 2026
Breach Overall
We have requested an action plan in response to the above breaches from the provider at the time of publication of the formal report.
· 28 Aug 2026
Breach Overall
An action plan will be requested from the trust to address these breaches upon the final publication of this report.
· 28 Aug 2026
Breach Well-led
We previously found 3 breaches of regulation around incidents, mandatory training, staffing, records, risk assessment, culture, leadership and governance.
Regulation: Regulation 18 (Staffing) · 28 Aug 2026
Breach Safe
These breaches were for regulations 12 (safe care and treatment), regulation 15 (premises and equipment), regulation 17 (good governance) and regulation 18 (staffing).
Regulation: Regulation 15 (Premises and equipment) · 28 Aug 2026
Breach Safe
These breaches were for regulations 12 (safe care and treatment), regulation 15 (premises and equipment) and regulation 18 (staffing).
Regulation: Regulation 15 (Premises and equipment) · 28 Aug 2026
Breach Overall
The previous breach had been addressed, with improvements to medical staff mandatory training rates.
· 30 Jul 2026
Breach Well-led
The service was in breach of legal regulation in relation to Regulation 18 Staffing, Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014.
Regulation: Regulation 18 (Staffing) · 4 Mar 2026
Breach Safe
The service was previously in breach of Regulation 12 (safe care and treatment), Regulation 15 (premises and equipment), and Regulation 17 (good governance) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008.
Regulation: Regulation 12 (Safe care and treatment) · 4 Mar 2026
Breach Well-led
We found 3 breaches of the regulations in relation to staffing, safeguarding and governance.
Regulation: Regulation 18 (Staffing) · 4 Mar 2026