Royal Cornwall Hospital

Inspection visit took place on March 8, 2022.

This was an unannounced (30-minute notice), focused inspection of Royal Cornwall Hospital urgent and emergency care services and medical care services. There was an additional focus on the urgent and emergency care pathway across Cornwall where a number of inspections were carried out over a few weeks. This was to assess how patient risks were being managed across health and social care services during increased and extreme capacity pressures. 

Only parts of four key questions were inspected: safe, responsive, caring and well-led.

The CQC found significant delays to people’s treatment across primary care, urgent care, 999 and acute services, which put people at risk of harm.