Published: 12:34, 18 August 2026

The Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust has “almost eliminated” corridor care in response to criticism from the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

At the end of last month, the independent watchdog published a report calling for improvements in surgical provision and in the accident and emergency department.

Trust chief executive Thom Lafferty was frank about the CQC’s verdict: “We are not an outstanding organisation at this point in time. We do require improvement in a number of areas, and we're absolutely committed to working with partners, working with our communities to make those improvements.”

However, he said many improvements were already in place when the CQC inspected at the end of 2025 and in January this year, and the results were now being seen.

He was also clear that the ageing buildings at Hamstel Road, Harlow, were a major contributor to problems identified by the watchdog, and he hoped the CQC would back the campaign to build a new hospital, fit for purpose.

The trust was, he said, “pushing every single political lever” to advance the case for Government investment as soon as possible.

Mr Lafferty said: “We received some criticism as to the environment in which patients were receiving care.

“At the time the CQC came in, we had patients receiving care in our emergency department corridor.

“Since then, we have almost eliminated corridor care as part of our standard way of practising - and the CQC have acknowledged and recognised that.

“Nevertheless, that was what they saw when they initially came in and looked at our urgent and emergency care services.

“It would be fair to say… just because we've eliminated corridor care doesn't mean that we haven't still got work to do with regards to the environment in which we look after patients.”

He highlighted the need for better facilities to care for patients with minor injuries.

“These are patients who attend our emergency department. They're not at risk of losing their life. They're not a high-risk case or a trauma case, but nevertheless they require some form of care.

“Currently, we don't have optimised arrangements for looking after those patients. And we continue to work on solutions in partnership with primary care and community services to have a more proportionate and better environment for those ‘minors’ patients.”

He also admitted that the CQC had highlighted issues with digital record-keeping, following the introduction of PAHT’s Alex Health system.

Mr Lafferty said: “Alex Health has moved us forward with regard to the ordering of our digital records and our productivity. Nevertheless, there remain some teething problems, and certainly there were when the CQC came in.

“Staff were telling them about it. The other thing that staff told them about was the amount of change going on in the organisation.

“We had also put in place a new executive leadership team…We were also right at the end of a large restructuring process of our operational divisions. So the CQC saw all of that change and the disruption caused by it.

“From my perspective, what's happened since that change is significant statistical improvement. Nevertheless, the CQC will report on what they found at the time of the inspection. And they would have spoken to staff who had low levels of morale, part of which was caused by the pace and the volume of change being transacted by us at the time.”

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