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Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
NHS trust · ODS code RJR
About this trust
- Type
- NHS acute trust
- Hospitals
- 1 on the CQC register
- Website
- www.coch.nhs.uk
Care Quality Commission rating
Trust-wide rating, most recent inspection: 2024-02-14.
Care Quality Commission, Open Government Licence v3.0, retrieved 2026-10-25.
What the CQC inspected
The CQC rates every service against five key questions. These are the ratings from the most recent inspection.
Care Quality Commission, Open Government Licence v3.0, retrieved 2026-10-25.
What patients said
The NHS Friends and Family Test asks patients whether they would recommend the service. Responses for May 2026.
NHS England Friends and Family Test, Open Government Licence v3.0, retrieved 2026-10-25. The FFT is not a formal performance measure and response rates vary between services.
Cancer waiting times
How quickly this trust diagnoses and starts treatment for people referred with a suspicion of cancer. Data for March 2026. Targets are the NHS operational standards. No English region currently meets the 62-day standard.
target 85%
target 75%
target 96%
62-day treatment by cancer type
The share of patients who began treatment within 62 days of an urgent referral, for each type this trust reports. The national aim is 85%. Numbers per type are smaller, so they move more from month to month.
| Cancer type | Within 62 days |
|---|---|
| Breast | 89% |
| Lung | 100% |
| Bowel | 72% |
| Prostate | 86% |
| Skin | 89% |
| Gynaecological | 73% |
| Head and neck | 100% |
| Lymphoma | 60% |
| Oesophagus and stomach | 0% |
| Liver and bile duct | 80% |
| Other urological | 75% |
| Other blood | 89% |
NHS England Cancer Waiting Times, Open Government Licence v3.0, retrieved 2026-10-25. Provisional monthly data. Small numbers of patients can move a percentage sharply.
Mortality (SHMI)
The Summary Hospital-level Mortality Indicator compares the number of people who die after care at this trust with the number expected, given how ill the patients were. Rolling 12 months to August 2025.
NHS Digital, Accredited Official Statistic, Open Government Licence v3.0, retrieved 2026-10-25. The SHMI is not a measure of the quality of care and a “higher than expected” band is a flag for further investigation, not a judgement. It must not be used to rank trusts. It does not include deaths of patients receiving palliative care where that is coded.
Research output
Papers published by researchers affiliated with this trust, indexed by OpenAlex.
2022: 49 · 2023: 44 · 2024: 57 · 2025: 70 · 2026: 37
Top subject areas:
See the paper list on OpenAlex →
OpenAlex, CC0, retrieved 2026-10-25. Counts by publication year, not by when a paper's affiliation record was last updated - a recent year's count can still rise as OpenAlex indexes more of that year's output.
NHS waiting times, trust-wide
Weeks from referral to treatment for NHS-funded care, across all this trust's sites.
| Specialty | Median wait | Within 18 weeks | Patients waiting | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All specialties | 11 wks | 68% | 32,730 | 4 weeks shorter since Jan 2026 |
| Cardiology | 7 wks | 87% | 875 | 5 weeks shorter since Jan 2026 |
| Dermatology | 10 wks | 74% | 2,493 | 4 weeks shorter since Jan 2026 |
| Ear, nose and throat | 12 wks | 70% | 2,983 | 12 weeks shorter since Jan 2026 |
| Elderly medicine | 7 wks | 90% | 211 | 3 weeks shorter since Jan 2026 |
| Gastroenterology | 7 wks | 89% | 850 | 3 weeks shorter since Jan 2026 |
| General internal medicine | 4 wks | 94% | 65 | 1 week longer since Jan 2026 |
| General surgery | 12 wks | 68% | 1,048 | 2 weeks shorter since Jan 2026 |
| Gynaecology | 14 wks | 57% | 2,923 | 2 weeks shorter since Jan 2026 |
| Ophthalmology | 11 wks | 66% | 3,467 | 3 weeks shorter since Jan 2026 |
| Oral surgery | 20 wks | 45% | 2,237 | 1 week shorter since Jan 2026 |
| Other medical services | 11 wks | 69% | 3,040 | 2 weeks shorter since Jan 2026 |
| Other services | 11 wks | 78% | 473 | 3 weeks longer since Jan 2026 |
| Other surgical services | 13 wks | 64% | 5,744 | 3 weeks shorter since Jan 2026 |
| Plastic surgery | 7 wks | 72% | 963 | 8 weeks shorter since Jan 2026 |
| Respiratory medicine | 6 wks | 85% | 1,131 | 5 weeks shorter since Jan 2026 |
| Rheumatology | 6 wks | 95% | 497 | 5 weeks shorter since Jan 2026 |
| Trauma and orthopaedics | 12 wks | 63% | 2,417 | no change since Jan 2026 |
| Urology | 10 wks | 70% | 1,313 | 2 weeks shorter since Jan 2026 |
NHS-funded care only. Retrieved 2026-10-25.
Hospitals in this trust
Each is inspected and rated separately.