Contains public sector information from the Care Quality Commission, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Hertford County Hospital is run by East And North Hertfordshire Teaching NHS Trust. Across East And North Hertfordshire Teaching NHS Trust, 65.2% of the waiting list had been waiting 18 weeks or less in August 2026, against the NHS standard of 92%.
At a glance
Whether this trust meets each official NHS operational standard — not a combined score or ranking.
79.5% treated within 62 days · standard 85% · About this data
Diagnostics
Below NHS standard
46.0% waiting 6+ weeks · standard 1.0% or fewer · About this data
Mortality (SHMI)
As expected
Screening indicator, not a death rate — a prompt to investigate, not proof of poor care · About this data
In plain English
AI-generated
East And North Hertfordshire Teaching NHS Trust reported 18,817 A&E attendances in September 2026, with 72.4% of patients seen within four hours. In August 2026, the trust had 57,593 patients on its waiting list, and 65.2% were seen within 18 weeks of referral. Staff survey data from 2025 showed that 63.7% of employees would be happy for a friend or relative to be treated there.
Automatically generated from the official figures on this page and checked to restate only those figures. Last generated 9 October 2026. This is a plain-English summary, not medical advice. About these summaries
CQC inspection ratings
Safe
Good
Caring
Good
Responsive
Good
Well-led
Good
The Care Quality Commission rates hospitals on five questions. This location was last inspected November 2015. Source: CQC. About CQC ratings
CQC ratings by service
CQC rates these services individually. Each row is the most recent rating CQC published under that service name, with its date.
▼ 7 vs yr agoBetter than 64% of trustsData: Sep 2026
NHS England publishes waiting-time and A&E figures per trust, not per building — figures marked Trust-wide cover all hospitals run by East And North Hertfordshire Teaching NHS Trust.
Performance over time
Trust-wide (East And North Hertfordshire Teaching NHS Trust) · hover a month for the exact figure · monthly data table
Total waiting list
Incomplete pathways, all specialties
Waiting under 18 weeks
Share of the waiting list
A&E seen within 4 hours
All department types
A&E performance
Trust-wide (East And North Hertfordshire Teaching NHS Trust) · Latest month: September 2026 · all A&E department types combined — the official headline basis.
A&E attendances
18,817
All department types · latest month
Seen within 4 hours
72.4%
All department types · NHS standard: 95%
Waited over 12 hours
89
From decision-to-admit ('trolley waits')
Emergency admissions
2,626
All department types · latest month
Major A&E only (Type 1)
Attendances
9,588
Seen within 4 hours
47.1%
The all-types headline above includes minor-injury units and urgent treatment centres (Type 3), which typically report much higher 4-hour performance and lift the combined figure. This narrower figure covers only the main, consultant-led A&E department run by East And North Hertfordshire Teaching NHS Trust — Type 1 in NHS England's classification.
Department type
Attendances
Within 4 hours
All types (official headline)
18,817
72.4%
Type 1 — major A&E
9,588
47.1%
Type 3 — minor injury / UTC
9,229
98.7%
Source: NHS England A&E Attendances & Emergency Admissions. About this data
Cancer waiting times
Trust-wide (East And North Hertfordshire Teaching NHS Trust) · Latest month: August 2026.
Faster diagnosis (28 days)
65.6%
928 of 1,414 treated in time
Target 75% · below target
Treatment within 62 days
79.5%
181 of 227 treated in time
Target 85% · below target
Treatment within 31 days
96.5%
801 of 830 treated in time
Target 96% · meets target
Treated within 62 days
Urgent referral to first treatment
Faster diagnosis (28 days)
Referral to diagnosis or ruling-out
Treated within 31 days
Decision to treat to first treatment
Source: NHS England Cancer Waiting Times. The 62-day standard is urgent referral to first treatment; the 28-day faster-diagnosis standard is referral to diagnosis or ruling-out. About this data
Patient experience (Friends & Family Test)
Trust-wide (East And North Hertfordshire Teaching NHS Trust) · Latest month: August 2026 · a voluntary, monthly feedback survey — the figure is the share of respondents who rated their experience 'good' or 'very good'. Response rates are often low and respondents are self-selected, not a representative sample, so read this alongside the clinical measures above, not on its own.
2025 · the views of staff who work at this trust — a measure of workforce culture, morale and confidence, not a direct measure of clinical outcomes. There is no official NHS target for these figures, so they are shown as context, never a pass or fail.
Staff happy for a friend or relative to be treated here
63.7%
Agreed · 2025 NHS Staff Survey▼ 0.4 pts vs 2024Median English trust: 63.9%
Staff engagement
6.83
out of 10 · 2025
Would recommend as a place to work
58.4%
Agreed · 2025
The NHS Staff Survey records the views of staff who chose to respond — a measure of workforce culture, morale and staff confidence, not a direct measure of clinical outcomes or safety. Response rates vary between trusts. England only; Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland run separate staff surveys on a different basis, so these figures are never compared across nations.
Source: NHS Staff Survey (NHS England), Open Government Licence. About this data
Cancelled operations
Trust-wide (East And North Hertfordshire Teaching NHS Trust) · Quarter ending 30 June 2026 · last-minute cancellations for NON-CLINICAL reasons (no bed, no staff, an emergency taking priority) — not cancellations chosen by the patient or on clinical grounds. It's a raw count, so larger trusts naturally cancel more in absolute terms — read this alongside the other measures above, not on its own.
Last-minute cancellations
44
elective ops cancelled on the day, non-clinical reasons
Not rebooked within 28 days
13
the NHS standard is a new date within 28 days
% not rebooked in time
29.5%
share of cancelled ops without a new date inside 28 days
Bed occupancy, ambulance handovers & delayed discharges (UEC Daily SitRep)
Trust-wide (East And North Hertfordshire Teaching NHS Trust) · Snapshot at 8am, 29 March 2026. This is unvalidated management information — NHS England's own label — and can be revised for up to 14 days after first publication. It is collected only during the winter Daily SitRep window, so this is the latest date the collection has published, not necessarily today. It measures operational pressure (how full the hospital is), NOT care quality — high occupancy is normal for NHS hospitals, especially in winter, and is not a safety or performance score. The ambulance-handover figures below cover winter 2025-26 as a period total (not a snapshot): the time from an ambulance arriving to the patient being handed over to A&E staff. The delayed-discharge figures cover the most recent 7 days of the collection (not a snapshot, and not the whole winter): a patient who "no longer meets the criteria to reside" is medically ready to leave hospital, but how quickly they actually do mostly reflects social-care and community capacity to receive them — NOT the hospital's own clinical quality. A higher handover or delayed-discharge figure means more operational pressure — like the rest of this section, none of it is a measure of care quality, and it carries no colour grading, badge or ranking.
Adult general & acute bed occupancy
89.5%
488 occupied of 545 open
Adult critical care occupancy
75.0%
9 occupied of 12 open
Ambulance handovers over 30 minutes
36.5%
of 8,686 handovers, winter 2025-26
Ambulance handovers over 60 minutes
12.5%
of 8,686 handovers, winter 2025-26
Medically fit but not discharged
48
patients/day who no longer met the criteria to reside but stayed in hospital, week to 29 March 2026
Discharged when fit
59%
of 826 who no longer met the criteria to reside, week to 29 March 2026
Source: NHS England UEC Daily SitRep, Ambulance Handover and Acute Discharge SitRep collections. About this data
Maternity — patient experience
Trust-wide (East And North Hertfordshire Teaching NHS Trust) · CQC National Maternity Survey, 2025 · scores are relative comparisons against other trusts, not a measure of absolute quality — based on 128 voluntary respondents (a question is only shown here where at least 30 people at this trust answered it). A lower score is a prompt to look closer, not proof of poor care.
Response rate
41.7%
Share of those sampled who responded
Respondents
128
Of 310 sampled
Confidence & trust in staff (antenatal care)
8.2/10
About the same as most trusts
Kindness & compassion (labour & birth)
9.2/10
About the same as most trusts
Involved in decisions about care (labour & birth)
9.0/10
About the same as most trusts
Got help from staff when needed (in hospital, after the birth)
7.6/10
About the same as most trusts
Confidence & trust in your midwife (postnatal care at home)
8.5/10
About the same as most trusts
Midwife listened to you (postnatal care at home)
8.8/10
About the same as most trusts
Source: Care Quality Commission — National Maternity Survey. About this data
Stroke care (SSNAP audit)
Trust-wide (East And North Hertfordshire Teaching NHS Trust) · Sentinel Stroke National Audit Programme, latest quarter to 2026 · the SSNAP level (A best .. E) is the audit's own published grade for the quality of this team's acute stroke-care PROCESSES, adjusted for case-mix, case ascertainment and audit compliance — it is not a guarantee of any individual patient's outcome. England only; SSNAP also covers Wales and Northern Ireland.
Lister Hospital
D42.8/100
East of England (South)
Domain grades (patient-centred)
Hyperacute assessmentC
Specialist pathwayD
ReperfusionD
MDT assessmentC
Therapy intensityD
Therapy frequencyE
Standards by dischargeC
Case ascertainment AAudit compliance B
Source: Sentinel Stroke National Audit Programme (Royal College of Physicians). About this data
Patient experience — inpatient care
Trust-wide (East And North Hertfordshire Teaching NHS Trust) · CQC Adult Inpatient Survey, 2024 · scores are 0-10, and "better"/"worse" means the trust's score falls outside the range expected for a trust of its size (the CQC 95% expected range, centred on the national average) — a statistical-significance test, not a raw ranking. Based on 506 voluntary respondents (a question is only shown here where at least 30 people at this trust answered it). England only; response rates vary between trusts.
Response rate
43.5%
Share of those sampled who responded
Respondents
506
Of 1,250 sampled
Quality of information while waiting to be admitted
8.1/10
National average: 7.6/10
About the same as the national average
Cleanliness of your room or ward
8.2/10
National average: 8.9/10
Worse than the national average
Confidence and trust in the doctors
8.7/10
National average: 9.0/10
About the same as the national average
Confidence and trust in the nurses
8.5/10
National average: 8.9/10
Worse than the national average
Enough nurses on duty
7.2/10
National average: 7.6/10
About the same as the national average
Involved in decisions about your care and treatment
6.7/10
National average: 7.2/10
About the same as the national average
Given enough privacy when examined or treated
9.2/10
National average: 9.4/10
About the same as the national average
Given enough notice about when you would leave hospital
6.6/10
National average: 6.9/10
About the same as the national average
Knew what would happen next with your care, before leaving hospital
6.1/10
National average: 6.7/10
Worse than the national average
Source: Care Quality Commission — CQC Adult Inpatient Survey. About this data
Trust-wide (East And North Hertfordshire Teaching NHS Trust) · CQC Urgent & Emergency Care Survey (A&E), 2024 · scores are 0-10, and "better"/"worse" means the trust's score falls outside the range expected for a trust of its size (the CQC 95% expected range, centred on the national average) — a statistical-significance test, not a raw ranking. Based on 317 voluntary respondents who attended a major (type 1) A&E department (a question is only shown here where at least 30 people at this trust answered it). England only; response rates vary between trusts.
Response rate
35.0%
Share of those sampled who responded
Respondents
317
Of 950 sampled
Overall experience of A&E
6.6/10
National average: 7.3/10
About the same as the national average
Told how long you'd wait to be examined
1.8/10
National average: 2.6/10
Worse than the national average
Kept updated on your waiting time
2.0/10
National average: 3.4/10
Worse than the national average
Doctors and nurses listened to you
8.0/10
National average: 8.3/10
About the same as the national average
Confidence and trust in the doctors and nurses
7.9/10
National average: 8.1/10
About the same as the national average
Involved in decisions about your care
7.2/10
National average: 7.4/10
About the same as the national average
Test results explained before you left
7.0/10
National average: 7.5/10
About the same as the national average
Felt safe around other patients
7.2/10
National average: 7.8/10
About the same as the national average
Told how to care for your condition at home after leaving
6.2/10
National average: 6.8/10
About the same as the national average
Treated with respect and dignity
8.2/10
National average: 8.3/10
About the same as the national average
Source: Care Quality Commission — CQC Urgent & Emergency Care Survey (A&E). About this data
Patient experience — cancer care
Trust-wide (East And North Hertfordshire Teaching NHS Trust) · National Cancer Patient Experience Survey, 2025 · scores are the % of patients giving the most positive answer (and an overall 0–10 rating), and "better"/"worse" means the trust's score falls outside the range expected for a trust of its size (the survey's 95% expected range, centred on the national average) — a statistical-significance test, not a raw ranking. Based on 887 patients treated for cancer by this trust (a question is only shown here where at least 10 people at this trust answered it). England only; response rates vary between trusts.
Response rate
—
Share of those sampled who responded
Respondents
887
Who took part
Overall rating of care
8.7/10
National average: 8.9/10
Worse than the national average
Cancer diagnosis explained understandably
76%
National average: 78%
About the same as the national average
Easy to contact your main contact person
80%
National average: 84%
Worse than the national average
Involved as much as wanted in treatment decisions
75%
National average: 80%
Worse than the national average
Confidence and trust in the team during hospital care
77%
National average: 78%
About the same as the national average
Always treated with respect and dignity in hospital
84%
National average: 88%
About the same as the national average
Possible side effects explained understandably
69%
National average: 74%
Worse than the national average
Given enough information about signs of cancer returning or spreading
53%
National average: 65%
Worse than the national average
The whole care team worked well together
86%
National average: 89%
Worse than the national average
Got the support needed from your GP practice since diagnosis
38%
National average: 45%
Worse than the national average
Source: NHS England (survey run by Picker on its behalf) — National Cancer Patient Experience Survey. About this data
Hip & knee replacement — patient outcomes (PROMs)
Trust-wide (East And North Hertfordshire Teaching NHS Trust) · Financial year 2024-25(finalised) · patients having a primary hip or knee replacement voluntarily score their health before and after surgery. The average gain shown is adjusted for differences between patients (case-mix) — it is not a raw before/after difference and not a ranking, so read it alongside the patient numbers.
Hip replacement
Average health gain (adjusted)
22.9
Oxford Score, case-mix-adjusted, 0-48 scale Raw gain (unadjusted): 23.8
Patients
79
Modelled records — completed the questionnaire before & after
% who improved
98.7%
Oxford Score higher after surgery than before
EQ-5D Index gain (adjusted)
0.47
General health, secondary measure, 0-1 scale
Knee replacement
Average health gain (adjusted)
17.4
Oxford Score, case-mix-adjusted, 0-48 scale Raw gain (unadjusted): 19.0
Patients
77
Modelled records — completed the questionnaire before & after
% who improved
96.1%
Oxford Score higher after surgery than before
EQ-5D Index gain (adjusted)
0.31
General health, secondary measure, 0-1 scale
Source: NHS England PROMs (hip & knee replacement). About this data
Diagnostic test waits
Trust-wide (East And North Hertfordshire Teaching NHS Trust) · Latest month: August 2026. The operational standard is that under 1% should wait more than 6 weeks.
Waiting 6+ weeks for a test
46.0%
of 20,844 patients on the diagnostic waiting list
Test
Waiting list
6+ weeks
6+ weeks (count)
13+ weeks
Audiology
5,211
88.5%
4,610
4,061
Flexi Sigmoidoscopy
185
47.0%
87
13
Ultrasound
8,738
40.8%
3,564
119
Colonoscopy
552
38.0%
210
46
Gastroscopy
480
37.7%
181
28
MRI
2,339
27.4%
642
50
CT scan
1,658
15.4%
256
0
Cystoscopy
200
5.5%
11
0
Respiratory physiology
84
1.2%
1
1
Cardiology
952
1.1%
10
0
Neurophysiology
75
0.0%
0
0
DEXA Scan
321
0.0%
0
0
Waiting 6+ weeks for a diagnostic test
All tests combined
Source: NHS England Diagnostic Waiting Times & Activity (DM01). About this data
Safety: infections
Trust-wide (East And North Hertfordshire Teaching NHS Trust) · Cases in the 12 months to August 2026. Hospital-onset cases are those most likely acquired in hospital.
Infection
Cases (12 mo)
Hospital-onset
MRSA bacteraemia
5
2
C. difficile
127
45
E. coli bacteraemia
277
23
MSSA bacteraemia
99
18
Klebsiella bacteraemia
70
10
Pseudomonas bacteraemia
28
2
Hospital-onset cases per month
All infections combined
Source: UK Health Security Agency mandatory surveillance. About this data
Mortality (SHMI)
Trust-wide (East And North Hertfordshire Teaching NHS Trust) · 12 months to May 2026.
As expected
0.92
SHMI value (1.00 = as many deaths as expected) · 1,880 deaths vs 2,045 expected
SHMI over time
Rolling 12-month value
The SHMI compares the number of deaths after hospital care with the number expected given patients' characteristics. It is not a death rate and a higher value is a prompt to investigate, not proof of poor care. Source: NHS England. About this data
Waiting times by specialty
Trust-wide (East And North Hertfordshire Teaching NHS Trust) · Data: August 2026 · Source: NHS England Referral to Treatment statistics
Hertford County Hospital is run by East And North Hertfordshire Teaching NHS Trust.
How long are waiting times at Hertford County Hospital?
NHS England publishes waiting times per trust, not per hospital. Across East And North Hertfordshire Teaching NHS Trust, which runs Hertford County Hospital, 65.2% of the waiting list had been waiting 18 weeks or less in August 2026; the NHS standard is 92%.
Every figure on this page comes from an official publication: NHS England Referral to Treatment statistics, NHS England A&E statistics, and the Care Quality Commission directory. Data periods are shown against each figure — NHS England publishes with a lag of around six weeks. Read the full methodology.