UPDATED The NHS trust cutting services at Queen Mary’s Hospital has been told to improve by national regulators who found a toxic workplace where staff face racism, bullying and harassment.
The Care Quality Commission says staff at St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust are too afraid to raise patient safety concerns. Twenty-three staff members contacted inspectors anonymously because they feared what would happen if they spoke up directly.
This comes four months after Putney.news reported that trust bosses banned staff from sharing a petition against Queen Mary’s closures. That petition got 10,000 signatures from worried residents.
The regulator also found trust leaders can’t keep proper track of safety risks. This helps explain the dangerous nursing errors this site reported in April and July, when the trust refused to answer questions about what went wrong.
Staff describe toxic workplace
Inspectors visited in February. They found staff who described the workplace as “toxic” and “distressing.” Staff reported racism and discrimination based on race or disability from colleagues and managers. Over half of all concerns raised through the trust’s whistleblowing system related to bullying and harassment. A further 44% involved inappropriate attitudes and behaviours.
“Some staff didn’t feel safe speaking up when they had concerns, including those which could impact the quality and safety of people’s care,” said Antoinette Smith, the CQC’s deputy director of operations in London.
“They told us leaders didn’t always act on their concerns, and some described abusive behaviour and discrimination from some leaders against staff based on their race or disability.”
This is the second time the CQC has rated the trust’s leadership as “requires improvement.” Inspectors found the trust failed to fix discrimination in hiring and promotions despite finding the same problem in a previous inspection. Staff from black and minority ethnic backgrounds now make up 53.6% of the workforce but only 8.7% of senior non-clinical roles. Executive level representation of BME staff is 41% below the national average.
When staff tell inspectors they’re afraid to raise safety concerns, that’s a serious problem. It means mistakes might not get reported and fixed.
Cutting services while failing basic management
The trust runs St George’s Hospital in Tooting and Queen Mary’s Hospital in Roehampton. It employs 10,000 staff and treats 1.3 million people across southwest London. Queen Mary’s provides the minor injuries unit, rehabilitation services and day surgery for Putney residents.
Since September, the trust has been closing Queen Mary’s services. Operating theatres have shut down. The minor injuries unit is threatened with closure. Maternity services face cuts. The trust won’t answer questions about what urgent care will be left.
The trust is making these cuts while the CQC finds it can’t manage basic safety oversight or stop staff feeling bullied and discriminated against.
Smith said trust leaders “were committed to learning from and improving people’s care, but were struggling to implement some of these improvements or change the trust’s culture, which was very poor in places.”
The nursing errors make sense now
In April, we reported an emergency nurse was suspended after serious failures at St George’s. By July, we’d learned the nurse made multiple dangerous mistakes that forced the trust to change how it works, but the trust refused to say what went wrong.
The trust has repeatedly refused to answer questions about the failures. Putney.news has filed a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office over the trust’s refusal to provide information.
The CQC now says leaders lack “clear oversight of safety risks” and can’t “act quickly to keep people safe” when problems happen. The regulator found a “disconnect between senior leaders” that created “a lack of governance and accountability in specific areas.” Issues identified in previous inspections through incident data should have been addressed to protect people from avoidable harm, but weren’t.
The nursing errors weren’t a one-off mistake. They show a trust that can’t spot problems and fix them quickly, and then won’t tell the public what happened.
Merger made things worse
The trust merged with Epsom and St Helier Hospital Trust in May 2023. They now share the same managers but are still separate organisations.
The CQC says this merger has slowed down improvements. “We found leaders had missed some opportunities to work together or learn from each other, and we saw disconnects between the executive and front-line leaders,” Smith said. “This had slowed down improvements to people’s care, particularly on their maternity wards.” The CQC specifically identified maternity as an area where the trust’s governance failures had the most impact.
Maternity services are one of the Queen Mary’s units now being cut.
Staff told inspectors they don’t understand the trust’s strategy or what they’re supposed to do to improve services. The merger appears to have made existing problems worse, not better.
Struggling to implement some of these improvements or change the trust’s culture, which was very poor in places.
The CQC did find some good work. Leaders helped open a new orthopaedic centre with other hospitals, which means people spend less time in hospital. The trust runs more than 300 medical research trials. Inspectors praised improvements in urology care and projects to help elderly and frail patients.
Trust won’t answer key questions
A trust spokesperson said: “Any member of staff not feeling heard or supported is one too many and we fully accept this rating is not where we want to be for our staff and local communities.
“We have taken immediate actions to strengthen our support for staff and improve the oversight of quality and safety of our services, but there is more to do, and we’re taking further steps to support and listen to our colleagues, while strengthening the diversity of our leadership teams.”
The trust was asked after publication whether it would pause or reconsider Queen Mary’s service closures given the CQC’s findings on governance and safety failures, whether senior leaders’ initial dismissal of staff concerns accurately reflected their understanding of the culture problems, and whether the trust would reconsider its refusal to provide information about the emergency department nursing errors. The trust did not answer any of these questions.
The Trust’s statement makes no reference to the specific allegations of racism, bullying and harassment that staff reported to inspectors, nor to the finding that discrimination in hiring hasn’t been fixed despite previous warnings.
When inspectors first raised these concerns with senior leaders, the trust initially dismissed them. Leaders told the CQC they felt the number of staff raising concerns externally was “a small proportion of the total workforce.” This response itself demonstrates the culture problem regulators found.
Following publication, the trust said it was “reviewing aspects” of services at Queen Mary’s and claimed “no decisions have been made,” despite operating theatres having already closed and other services facing cuts.
The trust did not address whether the CQC’s findings about governance failures and lack of safety oversight would affect its service closure decisions, whether senior leaders accurately understood the scale of culture problems when they initially dismissed staff concerns as coming from “a small proportion” of the workforce, or whether it would reconsider refusing to release information about the nursing errors given the CQC’s findings about transparency and accountability failures.
What happens next
The CQC will keep checking on the trust through more inspections. The regulator has formally told the trust it must improve how it manages safety and how it treats staff.
The 9,988 people who signed the Queen Mary’s petition were right to worry. National regulators have now confirmed the trust struggles with basic management.
For Putney residents using Queen Mary’s, the question is simple: should a trust that can’t manage safety oversight or stop workplace discrimination be trusted to decide which local health services get closed?
The pattern is now clear. Staff too afraid to speak up. Safety problems not spotted or fixed quickly. Discrimination ignored despite warnings. Services cut while management fails. Questions dodged when people demand answers.
The CQC found it. This site has been reporting it for months. And 10,000 petition signers saw it coming.
Update – 5 November 2025: Following publication, Putney.news asked the trust three questions: whether it would pause or reconsider Queen Mary’s service closures given the CQC’s findings on governance and safety failures; whether senior leaders accurately understood the scale of culture problems when they initially dismissed staff concerns as coming from “a small proportion” of the workforce; and whether the trust would reconsider its refusal to provide information about emergency department nursing errors given the CQC’s findings about transparency and accountability failures.
The trust said it was “reviewing aspects” of services at Queen Mary’s and claimed “no decisions have been made,” despite operating theatres having already closed and other services facing cuts. The trust did not answer any of the three questions.
Putney.news has an active complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office over the trust’s refusal to provide information about the nursing errors. On 5 November, we submitted supplementary evidence to the ICO citing the CQC’s findings of “toxic culture,” governance failures, and staff fear of speaking up as strengthening the public interest case for disclosure. The trust told us it has not been contacted by the ICO about our complaint.
An earlier version of this article stated the trust “didn’t answer questions” without clarifying these were asked after publication. This has been corrected.
I experienced negligence and a complete lack of joined up thinking 2 years ago when a condition (which had been diagnosed 5 years previously – with the advice that surgery might well be required if it worsened) was not dealt with on a timely basis after my condition had become unbearable . Luckily I had the financial resources to procure an urgent operation for myself at Parkside Hospital, at a total cost of £9,000, when it was clear that I was never going to get the treatment I needed within the current NHS system. The surgeon who undertook my surgery at Parkside confirmed afterwards that my gall bladder had indeed become chronically inflamed and did indeed require surgery for its removal. I submitted a formal complaint to St Georges, when several months after my surgery I was invited for a completely pointless gastroscopy. The 6 page response which I received after many weeks investigation was less than satisfactory. The only action point which was acknowledged was the need to review the merger of historic patient records into the new electronic system. It was the failure in my case to correctly transfer my historic records which led to the fact that I was not treated as an urgent referral in the first place, and that my referral was requested on the basis of an incorrect diagnosis, which was, in turn, based on incomplete records.
I decided not to bother trying to sue the NHS as it was just too overwhelming to even contemplate. What does however really irritate me in debates about NHS treatments are constant references to racism in the NHS. I am white and what I experienced was nothing more or less than incompetence within the whole system. Does the fact that I am white does somehow minimise the impact of what I experienced? Is anyone seriously suggesting that white people get better NHS treatment than white people? If so I would like to see proper scientific evidence for that claim. For the record I have seen all aspects of health services both private and NHS all over London in recent years (not for my own health but for others) and I have NEVER seen any evidence of racism of ANY sort. I have seen plenty of complete disregard for patients, but that was a disregard for everyone.