Poole Hospital

Poole Hospital is the hospital provided by Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. The trust gained foundation status in 2007 and provides services to a local population of around 500,000 people, although this figure rises significantly between May and September each year, as Dorset is a popular holiday destination.

Poole Hospital has approximately 638 inpatient beds. The hospital provides the following services: urgent and emergency care, medical and older people’s care, surgery, critical care, maternity and gynaecology care, care of the young person, end of life care, and outpatient and diagnostic services. Poole Hospital is the trauma unit for East Dorset and the designated Cancer Centre for Dorset, providing medical and oncology services for the whole of the county, serving an approximate population of 750,000.

The Trust has an unusual case-mix, undertaking a very high proportion of non-elective work, with only 15 acute trusts across the country delivering a higher percentage of non-elective activity. Given the distribution of acute services within east Dorset, the Trust does not provide the usual range of elective services, with orthopaedics, urology, ophthalmology and interventional cardiology being largely provided by the neighbouring trust in Bournemouth.

We inspected this hospital as part of our planned, comprehensive inspection programme. We carried out an announced inspection visit to the hospital from 26-28 January 2016, and additional unannounced inspection visits from 8 -10 February 2016.