Media Release: Inspection report Queen Margaret Hospital, NHS Fife
Healthcare Improvement Scotland today (Thursday 12 June) published a report relating to a mental health services safe delivery of care inspection visit to Queen Margaret Hospital, NHS Fife. The inspection took place on 18 February, 2025.
Our safe delivery of care inspections of adult mental health services aim to take account of the changing risk considerations and sustained service pressures currently across NHS Scotland.
Queen Margaret Hospital has three mental health inpatient wards. During our inspection we looked at the wards, spoke to staff and patients and reviewed policies and procedures.
Speaking of the new type of inspection for adult mental health services, Eddie Docherty, Director of Quality Assurance and Regulation, said:
“We believe it is important to provide public assurance that adult mental health units in Scotland are safe for patients and staff, provide quality person-centred care, with clear leadership and a focus on improvement.”
Director of Quality Assurance and Regulation
Speaking of the Queen Margaret Hospital report, Donna Maclean, Chief Inspector, Healthcare Improvement Scotland, said:
“Staff used techniques such as personalised playlists to support patients experiencing stress and patients we spoke with were positive about the care they received.
“We saw visible clinical leadership and staff told us there was good management support at ward level. Daily safety huddles were used to escalate and mitigate risks relating to capacity, patient acuity and staff across the site.
“Care plans were complete and up to date and patient risk assessments were comprehensive and regularly reviewed. All areas inspected were clean, tidy and uncluttered.
“We observed the the use of mixed sex and mixed function wards which is challenging for staff and patients with regards to privacy and dignity.
“NHS Fife has a ligature reduction programme however the ligature assessments provided were incomplete and mitigations described within the risk assessments raised concerns with the inspection team. We raised this immediately with senior managers who provided assurance that risk assessments would be reviewed and updated as a matter of priority.”
Chief Inspector, Healthcare Improvement Scotland
Other areas for improvement included a lack of meaningful activities for patients to promote wellbeing and purpose, as well as low completion of essential mandatory training and high staff sickness and vacancy rates which could impact the safe delivery of care.
The Queen Margaret Hospital inspection resulted in three areas of good practice and 16 requirements and two recommendations.
An improvement action plan has been developed by NHS Fife to meet the requirements.
The full inspection report is available to view at: Queen Margaret hospital – mental health safe delivery of care inspection: June 2025
Notes to editor
This report is part of Healthcare Improvement Scotland’s programme of inspections and reviews.
Healthcare Improvement Scotland’s statutory role is to help improve the quality of health and care, provide information to the public about the quality of health and care services, monitor public involvement, and to evaluate and provide advice on the clinical and cost-effectiveness of medicines and health technologies.