Trust overview

On this page…

West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust provides healthcare services to over 600,000 people living in west Hertfordshire and the surrounding areas.

We see nearly a million patients every year and employ around 5,800 people, making and are one of the largest employers in the area.

Our sites and what they do

Our services are run from four sites:

Watford General Hospital is at the heart of the Trust's acute emergency services - the core location for inpatient emergency care, and for all patients who need the specialist emergency facilities (such as intensive care) of a major district general hospital.

Find out more about Watford General Hospital

Hemel Hempstead Hospital offers other local healthcare facilities such as diagnostic services, including MRI and cold pathology, as well as an outpatient service that sees in excess of 100,000 patients per year. In addition, it provides 12 stroke rehabilitation beds.

Find out more about Hemel Hempstead Hospital

St Albans City Hospital is the Trust's elective care centre. It provides a wide range of elective care (both inpatient low risk surgery and day-case) and a wide range of outpatient and diagnostic services with in excess of 100,000 outpatient appointments.

Find out more about St Albans City Hospital

The West Hertfordshire Therapy Unit, based in Abbots Langley, is home to our outpatient physiotherapy service. Our private physiotherapy service is also run from the unit in the hours outside of NHS use.

Find out more about the West Hertfordshire Therapy Unit

Vision, values and priorities

Our vision is very simple: to provide ‘excellent patient care, together’.

It underpins our values and our aim to support each other for our patients. We aim to create a culture and environment where our teams are supported to achieve our vision.

Our values have been designed by our colleagues for our colleagues. The values reflect what matters to us most.

Empowered – We are all listened to and are accountable for what we do. We achieve our potential through continuous learning, teaching and education.
Compassionate – We care about patients and colleagues. We always support each other and show kindness by considering the impact of our actions and decisions.
Professional – We set high standards for ourselves and others, delivering brilliant basics every day. We are calm, measured, fair and respectful; and commit to continuous improvement.
Inclusive – We value diversity and individuality in all its forms. We actively seek contributions from patients, partners and colleagues. We speak out against discrimination.

Our priorities outline what we need to do as an organisation to achieve our strategy, vision and values and how we will do this. They include three ‘whats’ and three ‘hows’. These are the three core challenges we face and three priorities to meet those challenges.

What we need to do:

Provide safe, high quality, timely and sustainable care
Redevelop our hospitals for patients and staff
Design and deliver services with our local partners

How we need to do it:

Embed improvement in everything we do
Clinical and wider collaboration across teams and organisations
Maximise data and technology opportunities

Regulators, commissioners and partners

The Trust is regulated by the Care Quality Commission, NHS England and NHS Improvement and our local ICB - Hertfordshire and West Essex Integrated Care System.

The Trust’s services are commissioned primarily by the South & West Health and Care Partnership, which is part of the Hertfordshire and West Essex Integrated Care Board (ICB) which also has authority to monitor the services we provide for 607,000 people who live in the local authority areas of Watford & Three Rivers, St Albans and Dacorum.

Other neighbouring ICBs also use our services. Acute services are provided for two million people across Bedfordshire, north-west London and the Thames Valley.

The Trust is part of the Hertfordshire and West Essex Integrated Care Systems (ICS). It includes CCGs, NHS hospital trusts, NHS community trusts, mental health trusts, ambulance trusts, local authorities, Healthwatch and many voluntary and community groups. It serves a population of 1.5 million people.