The Montefiore Hospital in Hove has been awarded an overall ‘Outstanding’ rating by the country’s health watchdog, the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

Following a rigorous examination including an unannounced inspection earlier this year, the CQC inspectors have this week announced the highest rating possible for the private hospital.

With less than a dozen private hospitals rated as Outstanding in the UK, this is a significant achievement for The Montefiore Hospital and comes just a month before it celebrates its fifth birthday.

To get to the heart of patients’ experiences of care and treatment, the CQC inspectors put the hospital’s surgery, medical care, outpatients and diagnostics services under the spotlight and asked `are they safe, effective, caring, responsive to people's needs, and well-led?’.

The Montefiore received an outstanding in two out of five key domains – effective and responsive – with a `Good’ rating in the other three.

In the CQC report, the inspectors’ highlighted how effective the hospital was in listening to patients and using this communication to make continual improvements to its services. The report said: “There was long-standing, consistent evidence that staff actively sought out patient and visitor feedback and made substantive improvements to the service as a result.”

This included the implementation of a patient experience committee and patient forums led by former patients and their relatives. Changes brought about because of patient feedback included the introduction of a lead nurse for pre-assessment, improved discharge pathways, and an initiative from the hospital’s head chef to introduce an on-demand hot meal ordering service so patients could order food at short notice.

And the inspectors praised the staff teams for being “consistently and demonstrably passionate about and motivated” by the hospital’s vision and strategy for providing quality patient services.

It noted that “staff shared strategies of improving care based on benchmarks, ensuring continual learning and focusing on internal staff development and promotion that helped to ensure everyone involved with the service, including patients, benefited as a result”.

There was “extensive evidence”, said the report, of effective, embedded multidisciplinary working and auditing. This included a physiotherapy team that proactively sought out opportunities for mutliprofessional learning and training and demonstrated how this improved patient experience and outcomes.

“I don’t think a single member of the team has been able to stop smiling since we heard this fantastic news,” said David Eglington, The Montefiore’s recently appointed hospital managing director. “This an amazing achievement and reflects a huge amount of work by so many. This rating is not due to one or two individuals, it is a result of high performing, passionate and caring teams throughout our hospital and reflects our motto of `brilliant basics, memorable moments’. I am particularly proud that the inspectors highlighted our strong relationship with our patients – welcoming patient feedback and acting upon this to continually improve our services is The Montefiore’s huge strength.”

The CQC carried out announced inspections on 23, 24 and 25 January 2017 along with an unannounced visit to the hospital on 4 February 2017. The full report can be viewed at www.cqc.org.uk/location/1-522837355.