Blandford Community Hospital
Blandford Forum DT11 7SN
Home › Dorset County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Dorset County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
NHS trust · ODS code RBD
About this trust
- Type
- NHS acute trust
- Hospitals
- 7 on the CQC register
- Website
- www.dchft.nhs.uk
Care Quality Commission rating
Trust-wide rating, most recent inspection: 2018-11-06.
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.
Safe
Requires improvement
Are people protected from abuse and avoidable harm?
Effective
Good
Does care, treatment and support achieve good outcomes and follow the best available evidence?
Caring
Good
Do staff involve and treat people with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect?
Responsive
Good
Are services organised to meet people's needs?
Well-led
Good
Do leadership, management and governance assure high-quality care?
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.
Inpatient care
97%
would recommend · 304 responses
A&E
100%
would recommend · 5 responses
Outpatient appointments
99%
would recommend · 102 responses
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.
62-day treatment
27%
% starting first cancer treatment within 62 days of an urgent GP referral
target 85%
target 85%
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 |
|---|---|
| Lung | 25% |
| Prostate | 0% |
| Gynaecological | 0% |
| Head and neck | 67% |
| Oesophagus and stomach | 0% |
| Liver and bile duct | 100% |
| Other urological | 50% |
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.
As expected
SHMI 1.001.00 = as expected
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.
27 papers in 2026
2022: 47 · 2023: 44 · 2024: 64 · 2025: 58 · 2026: 27
Top subject areas:
Prostate Cancer Diagnosis and TreatmentInflammatory Bowel DiseaseHip and Femur FracturesTelemedicine and Telehealth ImplementationPrimary Care and Health Outcomes
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 | 13 wks | 60% | 22,644 | no change since Jan 2026 |
| Cardiology | 15 wks | 57% | 1,796 | 4 weeks longer since Jan 2026 |
| Dermatology | 9 wks | 65% | 1,519 | 4 weeks shorter since Jan 2026 |
| Ear, nose and throat | 16 wks | 54% | 3,015 | 1 week shorter since Jan 2026 |
| Elderly medicine | 10 wks | 70% | 70 | no change since Jan 2026 |
| Gastroenterology | 10 wks | 75% | 968 | no change since Jan 2026 |
| General internal medicine | 6 wks | 90% | 10 | 4 weeks shorter since Jan 2026 |
| General surgery | 17 wks | 50% | 1,293 | no change since Jan 2026 |
| Gynaecology | 13 wks | 64% | 1,310 | 2 weeks longer since Jan 2026 |
| Ophthalmology | 8 wks | 76% | 2,383 | 2 weeks shorter since Jan 2026 |
| Oral surgery | 15 wks | 57% | 1,698 | no change since Jan 2026 |
| Other medical services | 11 wks | 67% | 1,640 | 1 week longer since Jan 2026 |
| Other services | 33 wks | 0% | 1 | 29 weeks longer since Oct 2025 |
| Other surgical services | 7 wks | 79% | 1,491 | no change since Jan 2026 |
| Paediatric services | 17 wks | 52% | 318 | 4 weeks longer since Jan 2026 |
| Respiratory medicine | 8 wks | 80% | 306 | 2 weeks shorter since Jan 2026 |
| Trauma and orthopaedics | 21 wks | 42% | 3,483 | 1 week longer since Jan 2026 |
| Urology | 12 wks | 63% | 1,343 | 2 weeks longer since Jan 2026 |
NHS-funded care only. Retrieved 2026-10-25.
Hospitals in this trust
Each is inspected and rated separately.
Bridport Community Hospital
Bridport DT6 5DR
Yeatman Community Hospital
Sherborne DT9 3JF
Yeovil District Hospital
Yeovil BA21 4AT