Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

The Inspection visit took place on 10 December 2019 – 15 January 2020

The Trust was placed in special measures in June 2018 following significant concerns found in several services and was told it must take action to improve. 

We inspected four acute core services provided by the Trust as part of our continual checks on the safety and quality of healthcare services. 

Our rating of the Trust stayed the same. We rated it as requires improvement because: 

• We rated safe, responsive and well-led as requires improvement and caring as good. Effective went up from requires improvement to good. Ratings for four key questions, safe, caring, responsive and well-led remained the same whilst effective improved. The rating for the well-led question at Trust level remained the same as requires improvement. 

• We rated two of the trust’s four acute core services as requires improvement (urgent and emergency care and surgery), one as good (outpatients) and one as outstanding (end of life care). Overall ratings for urgent and emergency care and surgery remained the same, and outpatients and end of life care had improved. In rating the Trust, we took into account the current ratings of the four services not inspected this time. 

On the basis of this inspection, the Chief Inspector of Hospitals has recommended that the Trust is removed from special measures.