Keeping you safe

Sulis Hospital is part of the Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust and continues to provide private, insured and NHS healthcare.

Q: What is the primary focus of Sulis Hospital?
A: At Sulis Hospital, our primary focus is on patients and their safety. We prioritise delivering high-quality care while maintaining rigorous safety standards.

Q: How does Sulis Hospital operate as an independent hospital?
A: Sulis Hospital operates under the ownership of an NHS Trust, which allows us to seamlessly integrate best practices and governance from the Royal United Hospital (RUH). This integration ensures the highest standards of clinical safety and quality care for our patients. We monitor clinical quality and safety and report on this regularly by openly sharing information, ensuring we can respond to incidents quickly and effectively.

Q: What are Sulis Hospital’s quality ratings?
A: Our hospital facility is rated ‘Outstanding for Caring’ by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). Overall, we hold a ‘Good’ CQC rating. These assessments reflect our commitment to excellence in patient care.

Q: What special accreditation has Sulis Hospital achieved?
A: Sulis is the first independent hospital to achieve accreditation as an elective surgical hub through NHS England’s Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) scheme. This accreditation, alongside our recognition as a National Joint Registry (NJR) Quality Data Provider, underscores our commitment to providing high standards of clinical care.

Q: How does Sulis Hospital handle patient transfers to the local NHS Trust?
A: In the extremely rare event that a patient needs intensive care, we work closely with the ambulance service and the Royal United Hospital Bath (RUH) to ensure safe and timely transfers for post-operative patients.

Q: What additional support does Sulis Hospital provide during patient transfers?
A: We collaborate with Retrieve, the Adult Critical Care Transfer Service (ACCTS) for South West England. When the South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SWASFT) faces high-pressure activity, they step in to support our patient transfers to the Royal United Hospital Bath.

Q: What medical support is in place 24/7 for patients at Sulis Hospital?
A: Our Resident Medical Officers (RMOs) receive on-site support from our senior nursing team and have access to on-call consultant anaesthetists, and consultant surgeons. Sulis also maintains an on-call team to assist patients needing to return to theatre outside of regular hours.

Q: What further accreditation is Sulis Hospital working toward?
A: Sulis Hospital is actively pursuing Anaesthesia Clinical Services Accreditation (ACSA). We hold regular meetings with our anaesthetists as individuals and participate in specialty meetings to ensure consistency in anaesthetic services.

Q: Do patients need to meet specific criteria before being treated at Sulis Hospital?
A: Our pre-operative assessment team, in conjunction with strict criteria for admission, review patients prior to their surgery. This is to ensure that we can see patients safely through their procedure and post-operatively. If it is deemed, from a clinical perspective, that patients are better served in an acute NHS Trust hospital, the patient will be referred for their surgery accordingly. Patient safety is paramount.