While maternity care at Royal Sussex County Hospital was upgraded from inadequate to requires improvement, urgent and emergency care services were again rated requires improvement. Following the reports, Royal Sussex County Hospital was rerated requires improvement.
Maternity service
Evidence of improvement was found but inspectors also discovered five breaches of regulation related to the induction of labour and caesarean section delays, safeguarding, medicines management, the premises at Sussex House and how well the department was being managed.
Both safe and well-led improved from inadequate to requires improvement, however, the effectiveness of the service, was downgraded from outstanding to requires improvement. Caring and responsive were both rerated good.
Amanda Williams, CQC deputy director of hospitals, secondary and specialist care in Sussex, said: ‘Women and people using the service told us staff treated them with compassion and kindness, and we observed strong teamwork between doctors, midwives and other healthcare professionals.'
However, new concerns were found in effectiveness and design and environment. Despite the successful pilot of a second theatre in July-August 2025 a permanent solution was still not in place.
Urgent and emergency care
Two breaches of regulation regarding safe care and treatment, and privacy and dignity were found resulting in a letter of intent under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 warning of potential enforcement action.
The service was re-rated requires improvement for being responsive. Safe was downgraded from requires improvement to inadequate. Effective, caring and well-led all declined from good to requires improvement.
Williams said: ‘We found several concerns in the urgent and emergency department. Some people were being cared for in non-clinical areas, including corridors, which didn't protect their privacy and dignity. We were particularly worried about temporary escalation areas that failed to support effective care, especially for people whose health was deteriorating. Some people told us they felt frustrated and weren't always kept informed about their care.'
Poor flow across the hospital had led to delayed ambulance handovers and excessively long waits for admission, with 11 people waiting in the emergency department for more than 24 hours for a bed.
Reaction
University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust chief executive Dr Andy Heeps said of the ratings: ‘Concerns raised around caesarean sections and service management have been addressed since the visit in February with the introduction extra theatre capacity for election caesarean sections and some important senior appointments.
‘Most of the issues the inspectors highlighted in the Brighton emergency department (ED) are familiar to us and have deeply rooted causes – the physical constraints of the department, the sheer level of need that staff have to respond to, and the difficulties of getting patients through our hospitals and discharged into the care of others.'
Dr Heeps said a number of changes had been introduced since the inspection last winter, including opening a new medical assessment unit, reducing in A&E by moving patients to other wards at an earlier point and launching a partnership project to care for people outside hospital.
‘We have made significant changes, and over the summer there have been encouraging signs of progress, Dr Heeps said. ‘But we are under no illusion that the pressures on the local health system are real and that there will be times when those pressures are hard for both patients and staff to cope with, particularly in emergency care.
"In the longer term, developments such as the acute medical unit that opened this month and the £62m acute floor reconfiguration project will help us tackle the longstanding issues ED colleagues face around environment, experiences, capacity and flow.'
