Quality accounts

Each year, NHS trusts like ours publish our quality account. 

In our quality account, we:

• review last year’s quality priorities
• set ourselves new quality priorities for the coming year.

Our priorities for this year are:

Infection prevention and control

We aim to reduce infections, comply with infection prevention standards, and improve audit quality.

Joint reporting and learning system

We're working with our acute provider group partners to introduce a new digital incident reporting and learning system.

The system is planned to launch in July 2026.

Seven-day working and patient flow

We aim to reduce overall length of stay, with our improvements targeted by site. We also want to reduce the variation in length of stay patients who are admitted over the weekend.

Recognition and escalation of deterioration through Martha's rule

We aim to improve how quickly we recognise when a patient is becoming more unwell. We also want to make it easier for patients and families to raise concerns.

Improving medication safety through controlled drug registers in electronic medicine cabinets

We use electronic medicine cabinets on our wards.

They:

• make handling controlled drugs safer and more secure
• reduce administrative work for clinicians
• help us learn from previous incidents, improving our governance processes.

We aimed to:

Reduce controlled drug discrepancies by 50%

The total number of discrepancies reduced to 426 this year from 904 during the previous year: goal achieved.

Resolve 80% of controlled drug discrepancies

While this goal was partially achieved, we have improved our oversight and processes for controlled drugs: goal partially achieved.

Improved one-to-one care in labour

We focused on improving women's experience during labour and birth through:

• better one-to-one support
• compassionate care
• and quicker help when needed.

We aimed to:

Ensure concerns raised by women and families are taken seriously

Survey scores improved from 6.6 out of 10 in 2024 to 8.8 out of 10 in 2025. The 2.2 points increase exceeded our original target: goal achieved.

Ensure that women and families can get help when they need it

Survey scores improved from 7.2 out of 10 to 8.9 out of 10. This is an improvement of 1.7 points, exceeding our target: goal achieved.

Reduce the number of women who felt left alone at a time when it worried them

Survey scores improved from 6.1 out of 10 to 7.0 out of 10, just below the 1-point target: goal partially achieved.

Improving patient safety and experience through implementation of electronic consent

Electronic consent makes getting and recording consent easier.

We aimed to:

Improve our consent processes

We introduced our new electronic consent system, and most consent discussions are now recorded in the system: goal achieved.

Strengthen compliance with national consent standards

Most surgeries and medical procedures use electronic consent. Around 90% of consent discissions are now recorded digitally: goal achieved.

Standardise management of deterioration and suspected sepsis

We worked with our acute provider group partners to improve how we recognise and respond to deteriorating patients.

We aimed to:

Standardise deterioration tools and pathways

We adopted the group's adult sepsis and deteriorating patient guideline. We also introduced a digital tool in our electronic patient record to support better documentation and clinical oversight: goal achieved.

Improve response times and early management of sepsis

75% of eligible teammates have taken have completed alert training, meeting the national target. We're working to achieve 90% compliance: goal achieved.

Collaborative working across the Acute Provider Group

We improved how we recognise and respond to deteriorating patients, so people get the right care more quickly.

By working with partners, we also made our approach more consistent and in line with regional standards for sepsis and patient safety: goal achieved.

This important document sets out how we continue to improve the quality of the services we provide.

We welcome your views and suggestions on our quality priorities for 2025 to 26, which are set out in part 3 of this quality account.

Please email your feedback about our quality account.