Source · CQC inspection

Princess Royal University Hospital

Provider King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust Type NHS Healthcare Organisation Region London Last inspected 4 Mar 2026

Overall rating: Requires Improvement View full CQC report

Domain ratings

Five CQC key questions

Safe

Requires Improvement

Effective

Requires Improvement

Caring

Good

Responsive

Requires Improvement

Well-led

Requires Improvement

Current CQC assessment

Single Assessment Framework

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

Requires Improvement Assessed 4 March 2026

The service is not performing as well as it should and we have told the service how it must improve.

Date of assessment: 8, 9, 14,15 April and 1 May 2025. Princess Royal University Hospital is part of King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and offers a wide range of hospital services to people living in Bromley and Kent.This assessment looked at maternity services to assess the quality of the care received by patients using those services. The rating of maternity service has been combined with the ratings of the other services from the last assessments.See our previous reports to get a full picture of all the other services at …

Ratings by service

Maternity

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 (2)

Breach Overall

As this was a focused assessment, we only looked at the safe, responsive and well led domains, where there were breaches of regulation.

· 4 Mar 2026

Breach Safe

However, the service remained in breach of the regulations safe care and treatment and good governance.

Regulation: Regulation 12 (Safe care and treatment) · 4 Mar 2026

Earlier inspection findings

pre-2024 framework · 7 must-do

Must-do actions (7)

Legal requirements based on regulation breaches identified during inspection.

Must-do action 1 of 7

Must do

Safe

The trust must ensure staff complete mandatory training in line with the Trust’s own target.

Regulation: Regulation 12(1)(2)(a)(c)

⚠ The service provided mandatory training in key skills to all staff but did not always ensure everyone had completed it. Staff did not always receive and keep up to date with their mandatory training.

Must-do action 2 of 7

Must do

Safe

The trust must ensure staff adhere to control measures to protect women, themselves and others from infection.

Regulation: Regulation 12(1)(2)(a)(d)

⚠ The service did not always control infection risk well. Staff did not always follow best practice to protect women, themselves and others from infection. Not all staff followed infection control principles, as inspectors observed staff wearing jewellery on their hands as well as senior staff working in the ward areas …

Must-do action 3 of 7

Must do

Safe

The trust must ensure equipment is checked in line with Trust policy and documented clearly.

Regulation: Regulation 15(1)(2)(c)(d)(e)

⚠ The design, maintenance and use of facilities, premises and equipment did not always adhere to safety standards. Some equipment safety checks were out of date and daily checks were not always completed. In the six pieces of equipment we reviewed, including resuscitaires and resuscitation equipment, there were gaps in the …

Must-do action 4 of 7

Must do

Safe

The trust must ensure staff complete timely risk assessments for each woman and take action to remove or minimise risks.

Regulation: Regulation 12(1)(2)(a)(c)

⚠ Staff did not always complete timely risk assessments for each woman and did not always take action to remove or minimise risks. Observations of women’s well-being were not always carried out in a timely manner. Not all women had a carbon monoxide screening.

Must-do action 5 of 7

Must do

Safe

The trust must ensure all staff record all information relating to patient care and treatment is clearly documented.

Regulation: Regulation 12(1)(2)(a)(c)

⚠ Not all information relating to patient care and treatment was documented. Staff had failed to document the timings within several women’s notes of when they arrived and when they had been triaged. There was also a failure to document the triage category women were assigned. Not all note entries were …

Must-do action 6 of 7

Must do

Responsive

The trust must ensure waiting times and other key metrics are in line with national standards.

Regulation: Regulation 12(2)(b); 17(1)(2)(e)

⚠ People could not always access the service when they needed it and did not receive the right care promptly. Waiting times were not always in line with national standards. Compliance rates for women being seen in triage within recommended wait times had reduced. The trust did not achieve its target …

Must-do action 7 of 7

Must do

Well-led

The trust must ensure complaints are handled in a timely way and in line with Trust policy.

Regulation: Regulation 16(1)(a)

⚠ It was unclear if the trust was meeting its own target on investigation and shared lessons from complaints. It was unclear what themes, trends, actions and changes had been implemented as a result of patient complaints. Managers did not always share feedback from complaints with staff which meant there was …