Mid Cheshire Hospitals ranks top in region for privacy, dignity and wellbeing

Patient-led inspections have rated Mid Cheshire Hospitals as the top-performing acute Trust in the North West for privacy, dignity and wellbeing.

The Trust also achieved scores above the national average in every category of NHS England's latest assessment of care environments.

The inspections involve local patient representatives visiting hospitals to check criteria including cleanliness, food, building maintenance, dementia care, and disability access.

The Patient-Led Assessments of the Care Environment (PLACE) 2025 results have now been published and include percentage scores for NHS Trusts across the country.

Scott Malton, Chief Nursing Officer, said: “We’re delighted to have achieved ratings that are higher than the national average across all areas. This success is a testament to the amazing efforts of our staff, who all work incredibly hard to ensure we provide high quality, compassionate care to every person, every time.

“As a Trust we’re focussed on listening to our communities and understanding what matters most to them, so we can improve the experience for them. These scores show we are doing this across several areas and we are committed to continuing this progress in the future.”

Mid Cheshire Hospitals scored 99.23% for privacy, dignity and wellbeing, placing it first out of 23 acute Trusts in the North West, and sixth out of all 119 acute Trusts nationally.

The Trust ranked among the top 10 acute Trusts in the North West across all eight of the PLACE categories, with top five positions regionally for disability access, building maintenance and overall food provision.

Leighton Hospital saw a significant improvement in its already high organisational food score, which covers subjects such as menu availability and variety, information, meal ordering, timing, choice, temperature, presentation, and dietary requirements. Its rating increased by almost 5% between 2024 and 2025, reaching 97.57%.

Andrew Carter, Catering and Retail Manager, said: “These are really positive results for our food provision at Mid Cheshire, which reflects the important improvements we’ve seen recently.

“We’ve made great strides with our ward food, including the very successful introduction of our new Cook Freeze service, which has improved our hot meals by creating more flexibility, simplifying information, and allowing us to offer a greater variety of menus to cater for our patients' dietary requirements.

“We’ve also seen the introduction of our new Bakehouse outlet in the outpatients department at Leighton Hospital, which has been a huge hit with its fresh-baked and home-cooked products.”

Elmhurst Intermediate Care Centre in Winsford achieved fantastic results and was awarded 100% for cleanliness, a rating it has maintained for the past three years. The site also improved its organisational food and building maintenance scores.

Victoria Infirmary Northwich scored 100% for cleanliness and building maintenance, a slight increase on 2024’s already high scores of 99.75% and 99.13 respectively. It also improved on its previous scores for dementia care and disability access.

The 2025 PLACE scores for Mid Cheshire Hospitals in full are below: