Basildon Hospital's rating downgraded as serious overcrowding causes safety risks
The care watchdog has rated the hospital "inadequate"
Basildon Hospital's rating has been downgraded following a CQC inspection of its medical care and urgent and emergency services.
The inspection took place between December 2024 and March 2025.
The hospital is now rated as "inadequate."
Hazel Roberts, CQC deputy director of operations in the East of England, said:
“When we inspected Basildon University Hospital, we found serious overcrowding in the emergency department was risking people’s safety. While the trust faced a shortage of beds on the medical wards, the disjointed leadership in the ED was undermining improvements that could help keep people safe and reduce this pressure.
“We saw some people in the emergency department had been there over 12 hours, some having to stand or sit on the floor of waiting rooms and corridors. Staff were doing their best, but there weren’t enough of them and they often couldn’t see people around corners. Our inspectors had to alert staff twice that someone was deteriorating without them noticing, including one person having a seizure.
“Because of the pressure on staff, they didn’t always treat people kindly or as individuals. The environment was also in poor condition, and we found encrusted liquids on the floor and bowls of bodily fluids left for multiple hours, which could spread infection.
“Staff on the medical wards were caring for as many people as they could with the beds they had, erecting privacy screening in temporary corridor wards and treating people with kindness and respect. Improvements were still needed to ensure people’s safety and to discharge people promptly when they were ready, but leaders were making progress in this area.
“We’ve shared our findings with the trust so they know where improvements must be made, and used our enforcement powers to focus their attention on the most urgent concerns for people’s safety. We’ll continue to monitor these services closely to ensure people are receiving safe care while these improvements are ongoing.”
Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust has responded to the CQC's findings, stating that "they identified significant areas for improvement."
Matthew Hopkins, Chief Executive for Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We are committed to providing high-quality, safe services for the people in our care. However, this rating is not where we want to be, and we are working hard to improve.
“We made changes as soon as we received the informal feedback shortly after the inspection, and we are now providing better and safer care through additional staffing and changes in processes.
“For example, we have a dedicated team of staff in the Emergency Department waiting room, who are trained to identify those patients who might deteriorate while they wait, so they can be moved up the queue and seen quicker if required.
“Whilst we recognise there is still more to do, we are confident these changes have already improved our services.
“Our patients are telling us that things are improving, with 81 per cent of people who attended our Basildon Hospital ED in August saying they would recommend us to their friends and family – a ten-percentage point improvement in eight months.”