Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust

Updated 22 January 2020

Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust (GOSH) was established in 1852 in the London Borough of Camden and was the first hospital providing in-patient beds specifically for children in England. Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust is one of four dedicated children's hospital trusts in the UK. The trust achieved foundation trust status on 01 March 2012.

The hospital is the only specialist children's hospital in the UK that does not have an accident and emergency department. All children treated at the hospital are referred from other hospitals or their general practitioner, both within and outside the UK.

The trust operates from a single site in central London and has approximately 418 beds. It is registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to care for children aged 0 to 18 year of age. Together with the UCL Institute of Child Health, it forms the UK’s only academic biomedical research centre specialising in paediatrics.

The trust was last inspected in January 2018 (report published April 2018). The trust rating stayed the same since our last inspection, we rated the trust overall as good.

Updated 22 January 2020

Our rating of the trust stayed the same. We rated it as good because:

• Overall, we rated effective and caring as outstanding, responsive and well led as good, and safe as requires improvement. We rated two of the trust’s eight services as outstanding and six as good. In rating the trust, we considered the current ratings of the five services not inspected this time.

Our full Inspection report summarising what we found and the supporting evidence appendix containing detailed evidence and data about the trust is available on our website.

We rated well-led for the trust overall as good.

Updated 8 January 2016

Young people accessing specialist mental health services within the hospital were treated with genuine kindness and respect by highly skilled and experienced staff. Parents told us that the treatment and support their children received for their complex mental health issues was ‘lifesaving’ and offered hope for their future.

All children had personalised and holistic treatment plans with input from a dedicated multi-disciplinary team. Children and parents were involved in the development of care plans and risk assessments. Family therapy, support and psycho-education groups were available for parents and carers.

The environment was clean and safe with a notable calm and contained atmosphere and children had access to a range of therapies and activities. Restraint was minimal and issues of consent and capacity thoughtfully addressed with the involvement of children and their carers. Patient records were thorough and regularly reviewed.

Effective systems were in place for reporting and managing incidents, the learning from these investigations was used to embed positive changes. Feedback was proactively sought to improve the service.

The service was involved in innovative research and the MCU was accredited as Excellent by the Royal Society of Psychiatrists Quality Network for Inpatients CAMHS. The service shared expertise and delivered training to other trust departments.

Staff had access to a range of mandatory training and professional development opportunities.

Governance and risk management processes were embedded into the service. There was effective, supportive leadership across the service. However some staff felt concerned that the current reconfiguration of the service could potentially impact on the quality of specialist treatment delivered. Staff turnover was low, and staff told us they were proud to work in the service.