Annual Report Summary 2025 to 2026

Welcome from our Chairman

I am delighted to present our Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2026. It has been a year of improvement of which the Board is proud; it is also an exciting time as we transform and improve our services.

The themes for my statement this year are ‘change’ and ‘celebration’. 2025/26 has been a busy year and we have continued to improve our services generally, but we are not yet where we want to be as a Trust. We will analyse performance in greater detail throughout this report; like so many things in health, good and bad news is frequently aligned. For example, the excellent pilot scheme the Trust ran to identify lung cancers early- focusing in particular on our more deprived areas-has been a huge success; the consequence is that more members of our community will survive this disease but as demand has increased, timely access to the service has suffered.

There have been a number of changes to our Board and senior leadership team both during the year and since. We were delighted to welcome Neil Macdonald as our new Chief Executive; Neil has a strong reputation for delivering positive improvements as Chief Executive in Buckinghamshire and has brought great energy to our Trust. I have no doubt that he will lead the team to embed and build on the performance improvements that Mark Hackett (who we have recently welcomed back to Devon as Interim Chief Executive for NHS Devon) started but also to lead his team on the significant changes that we need to drive within the Trust and more widely over the years to come-more later. Jo Beer, our Chief Operating Officer left to become Chief Executive of Sirona Care & Health in Bristol and Steven Keith, our Chief People Officer, has retired after many years of NHS service. We welcome Adel Jones and Herjinder Cleaver as Jo’s and Steven’s successors, respectively in May 2026. Finally at the end of the financial year, Alastair Camp, one of our Non-Executive and the Senior Independent Director, retired after 20 years supporting the NHS. We thank Jo, Steven and Alastair for their significant contributions and look forward to working with Adel, Herjinder and Ashley Grist who replaces Alastair.

In July 2025, the UK Government published its 10-year plan. It outlined three key shifts: from hospital to community care, from analogue to digital, and from sickness to prevention. As a Board we are excited by the plan and, indeed, the three proposed shifts have been informing our strategic direction well before the plan was conceived. The opening of the new City Diagnostic Centre this summer is a very visual and impressive illustration of the shift to community and the focus on prevention, bringing the best diagnostic talent and kit to the heart of our City. In July, we are introducing a world leading electronic patient record (EPR) system for our patients. This will put all of Devon hospitals on the same system and not only enable us to better manage patient records and care but also better engage with our communities on their health requirements and enable us to better utilise artificial/augmented intelligence going forward. These building and tech investments are important examples of the way in which we are shifting care, but we are an extreme example of a ‘people business’ and the changes we are making require significant personal commitment from thousands of colleagues, not only within our organisation but also Livewell Southwest, our three Councils, our GP colleagues in primary care, paramedics in SWAST, volunteers across the voluntary sector and so many more. We have a long way to go in optimising the way in which we work but thank you, on behalf of the University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust (UHP) Board, for all you have done to date.

While we enthusiastically support the three shifts, ‘Derriford’ will remain the place that our communities come to for some of their most acute health care needs, including secondary care for Plymouth, West Devon and South-East Cornwall and tertiary and major trauma care for the whole of Devon, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. We are committed to improving these services and the built environment from which they are delivered. Having been underinvested in for decades, the Trust has been beneficiaries in recent years of very significant and necessary investment. The biggest project in recent years is our new ‘front door’ which is shooting skywards. This will transform our Urgent and Emergency Care service but also do so much more. It has been a mammoth exercise and I would thank all our colleagues, both clinical and non-clinical for their work, and also our partners NHS England (NHSE), politicians across parties and counties, Plymouth City Council, other NHS organisations and also of course the designers, contractors and sub-contractors who are making the dream a reality.

One reflection I have with our Board is that I have not come across an organisation which is so adept at finding bushels behind which to hide our lights! We are in the foothills of our improvement journey with a mountain range ahead and none of us are complacent, but I am wowed regularly by what we do as an organisation.

Some of the changes we have made are expressed by statistics, but they are felt by our communities, often at their most vulnerable times. For example, the dramatic reduction in ambulance waits will have saved lives and materially reduced harm as well as improving patient experience. Yes, it is part of the reason for the increase in ‘corridor care’ the elimination of which is rightly now one of our four priorities, but we need to celebrate the reduction in ambulance waits as well as focus on eliminating the consequential care in corridors.

Some of the improvements are more qualitative than quantitative. I receive a lot of feedback about our services from friends and colleagues. I hear about brilliant medical interventions that save lives for some and dramatically improve the quality of life for others. I hear sad stories at end of life. In most of the feedback I hear, even when the outcome is sad, I hear about our staff wrapping compassionate care around our patients and importantly their families also.

Our colleagues are to be congratulated on living within the money allocated by NHSE for the second year in a row while improving the delivery of services. Although not all the savings were recurrent (i.e. repeatable in following years), this is quite some achievement for an organisation which has struggled not to overspend for so many years. It is important not only to people as taxpayers but also to our communities as patients and carers; if we operate within our agreed budgets, we get greater autonomy from NHSE and can use this autonomy (as we have been doing) to drive improvement for our communities.

Few colleagues that I speak with know that we are now the most research-intensive NHS Trust in the whole country, beating hospitals that have global recognition for research. So what? Well actually it is really significant. There is indisputable evidence that patients in a research programme get better care, we are attracting the very best clinicians to come and practice in Plymouth (improving care and outcomes for patients), we are creating a revenue stream to invest in further improved care and…..we are developing treatments for disease, benefiting humanity across the globe. Congratulations to our Research Department and also to those colleagues and partners more widely who are making this happen.

The Board and I are very proud of so much that the organisation has achieved and excited by the opportunities we have to improve so much further. In my view, however, we will always be materially constrained in the improvements we can deliver if we don’t together address some of the cultural challenges we are facing. If you have read this far you will be excused for feeling that I am proud of our organisation and the care that we give. However, this is not felt by all staff. We have a lower percentage of staff than the national average who complete the staff survey and of those who do complete it, a lower percentage than the national average would recommend us as a place to work or a place to be treated. It is important that we address this. Our colleagues are a key part of the community we serve and it is recognised that happy and engaged colleagues provide higher quality care. Anxiety, depression and stress are (by some margin) the greatest cause of staff sickness and high levels of sickness can result in less consistent care and significant loss of resource which could otherwise be used to improve care. The Board is very focused on how we can improve culture within the Trust and materially reduce the racism, misogyny and bullying/harassment that some of our staff experience. I would take this opportunity to thank again our colleagues, volunteers and the numerous partners who support us in improving the service we provide to our communities. I am incredibly proud of the improvements to date and am excited by the further improvements I believe we will make in coming months and years.

James Brent

Chairman

 

Welcome from our Chief Executive

When I joined in October 2025, I had some idea of the scale and depth of expert care provided by University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust. However, I hadn’t quite appreciated the reach of some of our clinical teams. Did you know that as a Trust, we provide medical care to researchers in the Antarctic? As the provider of the British Antarctic Survey Medical Unit, we support all personnel deployed by the British Antarctic Survey, something truly unique about our Trust. I have also been privileged to learn more about Plymouth’s history as a military city and the role of our hospital trust in being home to up to 205 tri-service personnel who contribute their expertise to help care for our patients.

We are a trust that provides some truly excellent specialist care through expert and dedicated specialist teams. This benefits both our local population in and around Plymouth, across the wider peninsula and further afield in extremely cold temperatures!

We continue to make progress for those communities. For example, as a provider of tertiary care, we have worked with partner hospitals across the peninsula to extend specialist stroke thrombectomy to be a 24/7 service. This is important because by restoring blood flow early, this procedure is highly effective when performed quickly, ideally within 6 hours of symptom onset, and drastically improves chances of survival and recovery, reducing or averting long term disability. It means a patient who experiences a stroke in the early hours of the morning in Redruth can undergo a stroke thrombectomy in Plymouth and be repatriated to their local hospital in Truro sometimes within 24 hours.

In the last year, we have reduced ambulance handover delays for patients and built the new Dartmoor Building, which houses an Urgent Treatment Centre, to care for patients needing urgent care. We are currently constructing a £250 million new Emergency Care Building, an important step forward both for our local population and in our role as the region’s Major Trauma Centre.

We are on course to clear the longest waits (1 year plus) faced by people needing planned care and set to achieve our plan of ensuring 65% of patients are seen and treated within 18 weeks. For patients with suspected cancer, we are achieving at or above 80% (the national standard) against the 28-Day Faster Diagnosis Standard and have a plan to achieve the 62-day Referral to Treatment Standard next year.

As it stands, we are top in the country for research recruitment, leading in overall recruitment to NIHR clinical trials. We have also led nationally on the introduction of treatments, for example our hospital-based take-home naloxone programme and, working with Livewell Southwest, our community partners we are delivering more alternatives to admission within the community such as the X-ray car, virtual wards and an improved end of life pathway.

We have delivered our largest ever cost improvement programme of £68m with £38m of this being delivered recurrently. This has included improving our outpatient and theatre productivity enabling us to tackle our waiting list size as well as reducing our length of stay, getting patients home faster and improving the flow through the hospital. All of our achievements are down to the commitment of teams to learn and change, from introducing standard ward processes to improving access to theatres.

Healthcare is delivered by teams of people, both within hospitals and between them as the rollout of our electronic patient record across Devon demonstrates. As I write this, our colleagues in Torbay have just gone live with Epic, joining colleagues in Royal Devon University Healthcare Trust in using this system. In July 2026, we will join them in using Epic, meaning all hospitals across Devon will use the same electronic record for patients. This will be a significant lever for service transformation and better understanding and predicting the healthcare needs of the population we serve.

We recognise that we are on an improvement journey and the next five years will require cultural and operational improvement. We are working to improve our culture, the way we do things here, so that the majority of our staff want to recommend this as a place to work and be treated. We know that this, in turn, will lead to a better experience of care for our patients. We also plan a relentless focus on delivering better care by ensuring the right patient gets to the right place for their care as quickly as possible. We will do this by focusing on fewer but critical priorities, that are understandable to our teams and ensuring we deliver those before moving on. Our Year 1 priorities signal this change in approach. We are focused on the 4 priorities that will make the greatest immediate impact on safety and experience. They are:

1. Eliminating corridor care

2. Strengthening teamwork

3. Delivering faster access to first outpatient appointments

4. Operating within agreed budgets

Over the next year we will be working with our patients, colleagues and partners to co-create our new Trust Strategy. Our work to transform urgent and emergency care services, frailty, long-term conditions and outpatients will continue. In 2026 we are also expanding our local Gateway Hub and are due to open the Plymouth Community Diagnostic Centre in the heart of the city centre close to areas of higher deprivation, which will speed up access to diagnostics and help reduce health inequalities.

As the region’s Major Trauma Centre and provider of specialist hospital services, we have a part to play in the transformation of services across the peninsula, and we are already working with other providers in the south west healthcare system to do this. Demand for urgent and specialist care continues to rise, driven by an ageing population with multiple morbidities, entrenched health inequalities and the geography of peninsula communities. At the same time, we, like most healthcare providers, face significant financial pressure. Our approach to modernising pathology services is a good example of how we can take a joined-up approach to service transformation across the peninsula.

Over the next five years, we will deliver a clear and ambitious programme centred around offering high-quality care, timely access to that care, an inclusive and thriving culture for our staff and delivering best value for public money. We will take a digital-first approach, with research and education deeply embedded and using Quality Improvement as our default method for driving improvement.

Our workforce plan supports flexible, digitally-enabled, multidisciplinary teams, sustainably sized and shaped to deliver our future clinical model. Our new Research and Education strategy and strengthened academic partnerships will ensure we continue to attract, train and retain exceptional people. Financially, this plan charts a credible trajectory to eliminate our £125m underlying deficit over three years and move into surplus by 2029-31. This will require disciplined delivery, smarter use of resources, transformation at scale and strong partnership working across Devon and Cornwall.

The insights we have gathered, from our Patient Councils, our communities, our partners and our staff have shaped our priorities and will inform our Strategy as we develop this. They reflect what matters most: safe care, timely care, kind care, delivered by teams who feel supported and valued. By working together, with compassion, focus and determination, we will continue to improve, innovate and deliver exceptional care for every person who needs us.

Neil Macdonald

Chief Executive

 

Our Trust Strategy

We are currently refreshing our corporate strategy this year, taking account of the NHS 10 Year Plan, the recently published Integrated Care Board strategy and the soon-to-be published local Health and Wellbeing strategy. During 2025 we undertook work with partner commissioners and providers to engage with our staff, volunteers, patients, carers and the public around the NHS 10 Year Plan and insight from our stakeholders will, alongside our clinical service developments and transformation, inform our strategy.

 

Our year in numbers

• 190,728 patients attended our Urgent and Emergency Care units

• 679,572 outpatient appointments were attended

• 79,657 patients have been cared for on our wards

• We cared for 29,725 Same Day Emergency Care patients

• We carried out 24,040 planned theatre operations

• UHP is the second highest recruiting NHS Trust in England recruiting 45,643 participants to research trials

• We have 11,832 people in our diverse, committed, capable and compassionate #1BigTeam.

• 19.9% identify as Black, Asian or from an ethnic minority

• 73% are female

• 8.4% have a disability

 

 

Our Vision and Values

We aspire to be a high-quality, patient-centred organisation. 

We aim, through being clinically led, operationally delivered and digitally enabled to provide timely and compassionate care to patients and be a place where the best people come to learn, work and research.

What our Trust values and behaviours look like in practice:

We put people first. Our aim is simple, to value our people by creating the best place to work. We look after our patients, ourselves, and each other by living the below core values.

• We take ownership. We take responsibility for our work and our behaviours. We do what we say we are going to do.

• We respect and value others. We are kind and civil with our words and actions. We are inclusive and celebrate diversity.

• We are compassionate. We take time to look after ourselves and others. We are kind even when things are difficult. When someone does something well we say so.

• We listen, learn, improve. We are committed to learning for both ourselves and each other. We know that improvement is everybody's business. We listen to understand, not to respond. 

 

Our top 5 reasons to be proud

1. We are leading the country in research. UHP has achieved 1st place nationally for NIHR clinical trial recruitment, making us the country’s leading research-active acute trust.
2. We are one of 27 Major Trauma Centres in the country and provide excellent specialist care which we are developing every year, for example, this year we expanded our stroke thrombectomy service to be available 24/7
3. We are working with community partners to provide care closer to people’s homes through services such as our X-ray car and virtual wards. We are focusing on preventative care such as lung cancer screening and investing in a new Community Diagnostic Centre at the heart of Plymouth City Centre.
4. We are enabling digital healthcare, delivering 82,500 virtual outpatient appointments via non face-to-face means (24% of our total outpatient activity) which puts us in the top 25% of hospital trusts nationally and we are launching a shared electronic patient record right across all Devon hospitals in summer 2026.
5. The CQC found we had made ‘strong improvements’ for patients needing urgent and emergency care and we are the most-improved hospital trust in the south west for 4-hour performance with the percentage of patients seen and treated in 4-hours rising from 65% to 68.5%. Average ambulance handover times reduced from 125 minutes to 44 minutes, which meant overall that patients waited a total of 191 fewer days in ambulances in car parks this year compared to last.

 

Just a few of our highlights

Young Persons Patient Council

Young Persons Patient Council Celebrates 1st Birthday The Council, which now has 29 members, is growing all the time and founding members and new joiners came together one night in October 2025 for a special birthday meeting.

First patient in UK treated with new laser catheter 

University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust became the first hospital in the UK to treat patients with a new technology for vascular disease. The Interventional Radiology and Vascular surgery team at UHP are now able to treat PVD with a new technology - a laser catheter called the Auryon System, in partnership with healthcare technology distributor Aquilant.

Peninsula patients benefit from specialist stroke treatment 24/7

February 2026 saw the 1st patient in the peninsula receive specialist treatment for stroke in the middle of the night. The specialist mechanical stroke thrombectomy service, which is already one of the best in the country in terms of access for patients, has improved by expanding from being a day only service to now being a full, around-the-clock, 24/7 service. Prior to February, around 200 patients per year benefited from thrombolysis. With this change, the number of patients benefiting from this specialist treatment which helps people recover from stroke faster and better, is likely to double.

Lung cancer screening reaches a milestone

In early 2026, the Peninsula Lung Cancer Screening Programme reached a major milestone, with more than 650 lung cancers detected at an early stage since its launch in 2022. This achievement reflects a collaborative effort across Devon, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, involving teams from University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust, Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust, and Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust.

Plymouth’s Largest Anchor Institutions Unite

A Civic Engagement Agreement has been signed in June 2025 by Plymouth’s four largest employers - Plymouth City Council, Babcock International Group (Babcock), University of Plymouth and University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust - in a pioneering, voluntary commitment to address the root causes of inequality and drive inclusive, city-wide transformation. This landmark step collaboratively brings together major institutions in a coordinated approach to deliver social value, reduce deprivation and improve long-term outcomes for Plymouth households.

Providing healthcare in the Antarctic

Our healthcare specialists provide care for people right across the south west peninsula. But did you know some also provide medical care for scientists working in degrees of -40 in the Antarctic? UHP has been the provider of the British Antarctic Survey Medical Unit since 1997 - making our Trust truly unique in the UK.

Mobile X-Ray Service wins award

We won the “Improving Urgent and Emergency Care through Digital” category at the 2025 HSJ Digital Awards, where we were recognised for our mobile x-ray service.

The service supports care close to home reducing unnecessary patient admissions to the Emergency Department by bringing x-rays to the patient. The car comes complete with a full X-Ray kit and is staffed by specialist Radiographers and Imaging Healthcare Assistants. They cover Plymouth and the surrounding areas, offering support to patients who have fallen at home or in other community settings.

 

Building services and facilities for the future

Emergency care building

In March 2025 we had the good news that the New Hospital Programme had prioritised Derriford Hospital to start construction of the Emergency Care Building. Due for completion in 2029, the Emergency Care Building will provide a significantly larger and modernised Emergency Department and a separate and dedicated Paediatric Emergency Department to better meet the needs of children and families. It will house 9 new operating theatres, state-of-the-art diagnostic imaging equipment, and 60 Same Day Emergency Care bays to support faster assessment and treatment. In addition, the building will include training facilities alongside improved welfare and support areas, ensuring our staff have the space, resources and environment they need to deliver outstanding patient care.

Plymouth Community Diagnostic Centre

Work on the new Plymouth Community Diagnostic Centre at Colin Campbell Court is progressing well and remains on track for a planned opening in summer 2026. Once operational, the centre will provide up to 330 appointments each day, operating seven days a week and delivering more than 91,600 diagnostic tests annually. These will include CT and MRI scans, X-rays, ultrasounds, audiology services and more, all provided in a convenient community setting. By moving these services out of Derriford Hospital, the centre will help patients access faster diagnoses closer to home, reducing waiting times and enabling earlier treatment. Situated in Plymouth city centre with excellent transport links and nearby parking, the centre will be easily accessible for people across the city and wider region.

Dartmoor Building

October 2025 saw the official opening of the new Dartmoor Building. The building houses the new Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC) and is also home to other key hospital services such as the Fracture Clinic, Main Outpatients and Pre-operative assessment departments. 

The Dartmoor Urgent Treatment Centre is open 7 days a week from 8am to 8pm.

The Fracture Clinic which was relocated from the main hospital site to the Dartmoor Building offers a multidisciplinary team of experts the space to diagnose, treat and support patients in their recovery of fractures in a larger, modern, purpose-built healthcare environment.

Looking to the future

The above is by no means an exhaustive list of the building developments currently taking place and planned, as part of the Trust’s vision for our future hospital

Read more about our future hospital

 

National Leaders for Research

This marks a landmark year in our 30-year history of clinical research. UHP has achieved first place nationally for National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) clinical trial recruitment, surpassing the previous record of second place and positioning UHP as the country’s leading research-active acute trust.

#1 National NIHR Ranking, 18,000 ahead of King’s College Hospital

£9.9m Total R&D Income, 33% vs prior year

45,643 NIHR Participants Recruited, 35% vs prior year

205 Active Recruiting Studies, 42 commercial, 163 non-commercial

 

Our activity

We have made significant progress this year in reducing elective and emergency waits for our patients. This is against the challenging backdrop of rising demand for our services, increasing difficulty in filling vacancies for key clinical positions and the requirement to balance the Trust’s financial position.

NHS Clinical Activity from 2024 to 2026

NHS Clinical Activity	2024 / 2025 patient numbers	2025 / 2026 patient numbers	Up / Down patient numbers
Elective Spells	77,327	76,333	Down
Emergency Spells	72,751	62,944	Down
Outpatient Attendances	712,289	679,572	Down
Emergency Department Attendances	108,116	107,513	Down
REI Emergency Department Attendances	1,832	1,795	Down
Minor Injury Unit Attendances	58,790	80,594	Up
Babies Delivered	3,298	3,431	Down

 

Our strategic objectives

• Deliver high quality, safe care and a good patient experience

• Ensure the best value for money

• Move from analogue to digital through digital first approaches

• Transform our services so we help people avoid coming to hospital with care closer to home but provide great acute and specialist care when they need it

• Enhance research and education

• Create an inclusive, nurturing and empowering culture for great people to thrive in

• Provide timely access to services for people when they need them

 

Patient and carer experience at the heart of care

We believe that the voices of patients and carers are not just valuable - they are vital. By listening to those who use our services, we gain valuable insight into what truly matters and ensure that improvements reflect real needs and lived experiences. Every story, suggestion, concern, and idea shared helps us deliver care that is truly person-centred, compassionate, and responsive. When we listen carefully, we learn deeply.

This update is a celebration of the progress we’ve made together with patients, carers, volunteers, staff, and partners. From co-designed strategies and new initiatives to national recognition and transformative conversations - this has been a year of remarkable milestones, as we continue our journey towards truly embedding patient and carer voices at the heart of all we do. Our new initiatives include:

Embedding the Patient Voice Across the Trust

During 2025/26, we have made significant progress in strengthening how patient voice is captured, understood and used to improve care across the trust. Our Patient Experience and Engagement Strategy was formally approved and aligned with the Trust Quality Strategy, setting a clear ambition to ensure patients and carers are at the centre of service design, delivery and improvement. Governance arrangements have been strengthened, with patient experience now embedded within Divisional and Executive Patient Safety and Experience Committees. This ensures that patient feedback, insight and learning are routinely considered alongside quality and safety data. Patient representation at Trust Board is provided through the Patient Council, ensuring that lived experience directly informs strategic decision-making at the highest level.

Launch of the Active Listening role

A key focus this year has been improving the way we capture feedback in real time and respond quickly to patient experience. We have successfully implemented a consistent, automated approach to the Friends and Family Test, generating over 8,000 responses and providing a strong foundation of quantitative feedback. This has been complemented by the introduction of Active Listening, a proactive approach to engaging with patients at the point of care. Active Listening has been supported by the recruitment and training of dedicated volunteers, alongside the PALS team, enabling more regular and meaningful conversations with patients who are on wards. The co designed UHP Experience Survey is now embedded within this approach, ensuring that feedback is structured, consistent and aligned to the Patient and Carer Experience Framework. Together, these approaches are strengthening our ability to hear and respond to patient voice in near real time.

Strengthening Co Design and Patient Involvement

We have continued to embed co design as a core approach to improvement. Patients, carers and communities are increasingly involved in shaping services and influencing change. Key examples include:

• Co design of the Trust’s Dementia Strategy, informed by direct feedback from people living with dementia and their carers

• Development of complaints training with input from people with lived experience

• Involvement of patients and young people in recruitment processes and service improvement initiatives

The Young Persons Patient Council continues to demonstrate strong impact, contributing to recruitment panels, service design and national engagement activity. Their work has also received external recognition, highlighting the Trust’s commitment to meaningful involvement of young people. The Patient Council plays a vital role in providing strategic oversight and challenge, ensuring that patient voice is consistently represented within governance structures.

Building Capacity for Engagement

To support delivery of the Strategy, workforce roles and models have been reviewed and strengthened. PALS roles have been updated to enable more proactive engagement and a new Active Listener volunteer role has been introduced to expand capacity for patient interaction. A Patient Voice Toolkit has also been developed to support Care Groups and service lines to embed consistent approaches to patient engagement. This is being co designed with the Patient Council and will be rolled out across our trust to support local ownership of patient experience activity.

Partnership Working and Looking Ahead

We continue to work closely with partners including Healthwatch, community organisations and patient groups to ensure a broad range of voices are heard. This partnership approach is critical in reaching underserved communities and reducing inequalities in experience. In the coming year, the focus will be on:

• Embedding Care Opinion across all services

• Strengthening the use of data and insight to drive improvement

• Expanding patient involvement in governance and decision making

• Supporting Care Groups to take greater ownership of patient engagement activity

 

Our Patient Council reports

The role of the Patient Council is to provide the ‘patient voice’ for all aspects of the Trust’s operations and planned developments.

The Patient Council continues to play a key role in representing the patient voice across the Trust, acting as a constructive critical friend and supporting the integration of patient, carer and family perspectives into service development, quality improvement and organisational decision making.

During the year, the Council has maintained a strong presence across a wide range of Trust activity. Members have contributed to a number of strategic and operational forums, including Trust Board, Specialist and Emergency Care quality and governance structures, PLACE assessments, the Dementia Steering Group, the DAWN Disability and Wellbeing Network, Cornwall Learning Disability Partnership Board, Youth Council, Derriford Hospital League of Friends and the LGBT+ Network. This breadth of engagement has supported the continued embedding of patient voice across multiple areas of the organisation, including quality, safety, experience, inclusion and environment.

The Patient Council Annual General Meeting marked a significant point of transition for the Council, providing an opportunity to reflect on progress and recognise the contributions of outgoing members. Professor James Griffiths stepped down as Chair following seven years of service to the Council. During his tenure, he played a central role in strengthening the visibility and influence of the Patient Council, expanding membership, and increasing engagement with senior leaders and Trust committees. Key achievements during this period included the establishment of the Youth Council, increased involvement of Patient Council members in senior recruitment processes, the introduction of Admiral Nurses, continued contribution to PLACE assessments and the development of a regular Patient Council presence at Trust Board.

The Council also played an important advocacy role in supporting the relocation of Hospital Radio Plymouth back onto the hospital site, recognising the positive impact this has on patient wellbeing and experience. In addition, the Council recognises the significant contribution of Lachlan Mitchell in championing the voice of young people within the Trust and being instrumental in the establishment and development of the Young Persons Patient Council, which continues to grow in strength and influence. Professor Griffiths also reflected on areas for further development, including the need to strengthen engagement with the wider community and ensure consistent recognition of the value of patient voice across all areas of the Trust. These reflections provide an important foundation for future priorities.

The Council also recognised the contribution of outgoing member, Amanda Wilton, who has been a Patient Council member for eight years. Amanda has been a strong advocate for carers, people with learning disabilities and communities in Cornwall, bringing valuable lived experience and insight to the Council’s work. Her contribution has supported a number of developments, including the introduction and promotion of the Carers Passport, input into carers policy and questionnaire development, and increased awareness of carers’ needs across the organisation. She has also contributed to improvements in learning disability awareness and training, dementia care and patient experience through her involvement in a range of Trust groups and partnership forums.

Following the AGM, I was appointed as Chair and Karen Sweeting as Vice Chair. These appointments mark the next phase in the development of the Patient Council. As a new leadership, we have set out a clear ambition to strengthen the use of patient experience intelligence, broaden engagement and further enhance the Council’s influence in shaping service delivery and decision making across the Trust.

The Council was also pleased to welcome Mark Cunliffe as a new member. Mark brings significant experience from the deaf community and from his work supporting deaf individuals, including those with mental health needs. His appointment strengthens the diversity of the Council and enhances representation for deaf patients and those with hearing loss, supporting the Trust’s commitment to inclusive engagement and improved accessibility.

Throughout the year, the Patient Council has continued to demonstrate the value of meaningful patient and carer involvement. Through its ongoing work across the organisation, the Council remains an important partner in supporting the Trust to listen, learn and improve, ensuring that patient voice remains central to the delivery of high quality, compassionate care.

Pete Holliday

Chair, Patient Council

 

Healthwatch Plymouth

The last 12 months has continued to see heightened levels of activity at the Emergency Department. Whilst occasionally this has meant there have been long delays, feedback received by Healthwatch continues to remain generally positive around the treatment and care when accessed. Furthermore, a recent CQC inspection of Urgent and Emergency care also highlighted areas where strong improvement and meaningful progress in patient care has been evidenced, whilst also identifying areas that needed further improvement.

The opening of the new Urgent Treatment Centre within the Dartmoor Building is also helping to mitigate delays for some patients who have urgent but non-life-threatening conditions. In addition, further infrastructure projects are under way that will also better support hospital patients and services in 2026 and beyond. These include construction of a new Emergency Care Building; a new Community Diagnostic Centre located in the city centre and the move of the Chronic Pain Management service into a new purpose-design space at the Plymouth Marjon University site. Healthwatch look forward to the benefits that these projects and others will bring for patients.

During the last 12 months, Healthwatch Plymouth has worked with UHP on a project to revisit patient experiences of the Royal Eye Infirmary building following on from our report in 2024. Working with the Patient Experience Team and REI management, we conducted further visits in the summer of 2025 to gain further experiences from patients of their journey.

When analysing the feedback given by patients it became increasingly apparent that the patient journey experience was notably different between those patients with varying degrees of sight loss and those attending with minor eye conditions. As a result, we produced a training video for staff to highlight these differing experiences and were invited to present this at a recent staff development day. Still from the video simulation of how patients with various eye conditions visualise and navigate the REI waiting rooms and corridors can be found below. The video was well received by staff who were unaware of some of the issues being raised by patients. Our full report Patient Experience of using the Royal Eye Infirmary Report can be found online.

As health and social care services continue to become more integrated under government plans to shift the focus to prevention, it remains important to listen to patient feedback to ensure that patient journeys are positive and meet the expectations of patients. Healthwatch looks forward in continuing to be a ‘critical friend’ to UHP, ensuring that the patient voice remains at the centre of processes that look to further develop and integrate services for the future.

Tony Gravett MBE

Manager Healthwatch Plymouth

 

Our people

Staff numbers by staff group as at 31 March 2025

Staff group	Staff numbers
Nursing and Midwifery Registered	2775
Administrative and Clerical	2192
Additional Clinical Services	1875
Medical and Dental	1533
Estates and Ancillary	746
Allied Health Professionals	648
Add. Professional, Scientific and Technical	312
Healthcare Scientists	298

 

New recruits

New recruits staff group	Staff numbers
Nursing and Midwifery Registered	229
Administrative and Clerical	229
Additional Clinical Services	217
Medical and Dental	409
Estates and Ancillary	62
Allied Health Professionals	84
Add. Professional, Scientific and Technical	30
Healthcare Scientists	32

 

UHP is committed to creating a great place to work, through valuing our people and supporting their development. In the last 12 months we have:

• Successful bids to NHS Charities Together, strengthening resources available to support staff wellbeing.

• The launch of the Staff Thrive@UHP Hub, providing a central, welcoming space for wellbeing, connection and peer support.

• Introduction of Relationships for Change, a relational and restorative self-guided learning programme supporting positive workplace relationships.

• Ongoing promotion of professional conduct, expected behaviours and speaking up, aligned to the Staff Charter.

• Continued support and development for 40 People Champions, who act as local ambassadors for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI), wellbeing, staff engagement and experience.

• Delivery of in-person Respect and Civility awareness sessions, prioritised for leaders and managers and available to teams on request.

• A new programme of work on Sexual Safety in the Workplace, with tailored training for managers and awareness sessions for staff.

• Monthly bereavement cafés, delivered with the End of Life Team, supporting colleagues experiencing personal loss.

• Improvements to the exit process, streamlining the experience and strengthening organisational learning from staff feedback.

We know we have more work to do , as shown by our Staff Survey results below. We are working to improve our culture, the way we do things at UHP, so that the majority of our colleagues recommend this as a place to work and be treated. To this end, Strengthening Teamwork, is one of our 4 priorities for 2026/27.

 

Staff Survey

Response rate: 47.58% (5,432 respondents)

Would be happy with the standard of care provided to a friend or loved one:

• UHP Score: 55.71% 

• National score: 60.83%

Would recommend UHP as a place of work:

• UHP Score: 53.02%

• National score: 57.77%

 

Financial Overview

The Trust set a challenging operational plan in 2025-26 with the objectives of significantly improving Urgent and Emergency Care (UEC) performance, reducing Elective waiting lists whilst delivering a breakeven financial position (as part of an overall Devon Integrated Care System plan of a breakeven position). The financial plan was based on delivering a financial savings plan of £68.3m and also securing £21m of national Deficit Support Funding (DSF). The Trust is extremely proud of the work it has undertaken to improve performance in all these areas.

Despite significant increases in demand the Trust has achieved 68.5% 4 hour performance across 2025/26 and achieved a significant reduction in ambulance handover delays, with 31,482 fewer delay hours reported across the year. UHP made a significant improvement in the number of patients waiting 52+ weeks, reducing from 1,755 in Apr-25 to 636 by Mar-26. This was accompanied by an improvement in overall RTT waiting times with 65.5% of the total waiting list waiting less than 18-weeks by Mar-26 compared to only 59.8% at the start of the year. The Trust achieved the national Faster Diagnosis Cancer standard for 25/26, diagnosing over 80% of suspected Cancer patients within 28-days of their referral. The Trust continues to benchmark in the top 1/3 of Trusts in England for timely diagnosis.

The Trust has delivered the financial savings plan it set out and delivered its financial plan other than a reduction in the DSF which meant that is ended the year with a deficit position of £8.6m. It should be noted however that the loss in DSF was due to the overall Devon System not achieving its financial plan which was outside of the Trust’s control. We do need to acknowledge that this financial performance was not delivered in a recurrent way and that additional non-recurrent funding helped to offset other financial pressures incurred during the year. However, although this means the Trust’s financial position remains challenged, there has been an improvement of £25m in our underlying financial deficit position.

Financial Performance

As part of the Trust’s 2025-26 financial planning a number of adverse financial impacts were identified and incorporated into the plan. Our Healthcare contracts with commissioners were increased for inflation, however, due to the underlying deficit, inflation costs were greater than funding provided. The contracts included historical block funding but there were reductions in this funding in 2025-26 compared to 2024-25 to converge this funding towards historical level, and also a reduction in income for the annual tariff efficiency requirement of 2%. There were pressures from non-recurrent actions and funding that supported the financial position in 2024-25 not being available in 2025-26. Changes to Elective Recovery Funding (ERF) funding including the transfer of this from variable national funding to fixed ICB funding increased financial pressures, although there was increased income to reflect some price changes in Urgent Care tariffs.

To offset the impact of these challenges and to improve the underlying financial position the Trust committed to a financial improvement plan of £68.3m (6.1% of total operating expenses). This improvement along with nonrecurrent ICB funding and £21m of national Deficit Support Funding (DSF) enabled the Trust to set a breakeven plan.

The Trust carried out a formal reforecasting exercise in December 2025. This resulted in an updated deficit forecast of £8.6m which was accepted by NHS England. This adverse variance was due to the withdrawal of the Q3 and Q4 DSF totalling £11.4m which was withheld by NHSE as the Devon System was not forecasting to achieve its collective financial plan. Outside this variance the Trust’s forecast had improved by £2.9m due to increased ICB income which gave a net revised deficit forecast of £8.6m.

The Trust’s annual accounts reflect the delivery of the revised planned deficit position of £8.6m. It should be noted the Trust’s full reported deficit for the year was £29.7m, this included £21.3m of impairment costs and £0.2m of excess costs relating to donated assets which are adjusted out of the position to give the adjusted financial performance deficit of £8.6m.

Although the adjusted financial performance deficit of £8.6m was on plan, this position was achieved due to additional national and local funding mitigating the impacts of a number of adverse variances to plan, the most significant of which include:

• 2025/26 pay awards - impact of the final national pay award which was greater than plan, giving a total pay award cost pressure for the year of £1.4m.

• Cost pressures of £20.0m on operational budgets relating to inflation, recruitment, demand growth and other emergent cost pressures.

• Costs of Industrial Action: The Trust received funding of £2.3m towards strike cover costs and lost activity.

The Trust has achieved its ambitious cost improvement target of £68.3m, despite significant challenges from UEC demand pressures and industrial action during the year. Significant cost improvements were made, with £69.5m of savings delivered in year, an overachievement against target of £1.2m. This included £37.7m from Divisional savings plans.

The Trust’s financial position is a significant factor in its segment 4 assessment under the new NHS Oversight Framework. This is primarily due to its underlying deficit and the fact that we are in receipt of DSF funding. As described above in year performance against plan has been good however with the Trust achieving its plan (excluding DSF), improving its underlying deficit and also improving its implied productivity by 1.9% against 2024-25.

Capital Expenditure

The Trust spent £150.96m of capital in 2025-26. This included £97.3m of PDC funded developments with funding provided to support key developments including the New Hospital Programme (£42.3m), Electronic Patient Records (£20.9m), Dartmoor building completion (£5.5m) and Pathology investments (£7m). The Trust also spent £53.6m on the completion of key projects, such as the Community Diagnostic Centre (CDC) and replacing and refurbishing other plant, property and equipment assets.

Cash

At the end of the year the Trust had a cash balance of £108.3m. This is mainly due to high capital payables at the end of the year of £50.1m for which payments will be made during early 2026-27.

Statement of Comprehensive Income 2025 to 2026

£000s

Statement of Comprehensive Income 2025 to 2026

Income type	Amount (£000s)
Revenue from patient care activities	1,074.4
Other operating revenue	95.9
Total Income	1,170.3

 

Statement of Comprehensive Income 2025 to 2026

Expenditure type	Amount (£000s)
Gross employee expenses	(697.0)
Other operating costs	(427.9)
Depreciation and Amortisation	(43.7)
Impairments and reversals	(21.3)
Total Expenditure	(1,189.8)

 

Operating surplus

Operating surplus	Amount (£000s)
Operating surplus	(19.6)
Investment revenue	4.1
Other gains and (losses)	(0.2)
Finance costs	(3.3)
Public dividend capital dividends payable	(10.7)
Surplus / (deficit) for the year	(29.7)

 

Adjustments for financial performance

Adjustments	Amount (£000s)
Impairments/(Impairments Reversals)	21.3
Adjustments in respect of donated assets and goods	(0.2)
Adjusted surplus/(deficit)	(8.6)

Thank you for reading our Annual Report summary

PDF Version: Annual Report 2025 to 2026 Summary.pdf [pdf] 925KB

Read the full 2025 to 2026 Annual Report (PDF)