Ashford and St Peter's Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust: The Complete Guide

The trust and its hospital sites

Ashford and St Peter's Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust runs two hospital sites in Surrey, deliberately split by function rather than geography alone — one handling emergencies and complex care, the other concentrating on planned, elective work so it's less exposed to emergency-driven cancellations.

The trust reports around 5,300 staff and an annual turnover of roughly £531 million on its most recent published (2025/26) figures, serving a population of more than 410,000 people across Surrey and the surrounding area — making it the largest acute hospital services provider in that specific part of the region. Annual activity is substantial for a two-site trust: over 40,000 emergency admissions, close to 64,000 planned inpatient and day-case admissions, more than 122,000 A&E attendances, and over 615,000 outpatient clinic visits, with a further roughly 117,000 outpatient appointments delivered virtually — a meaningfully large share of the trust's outpatient activity now happening remotely rather than in person. We couldn't find a confirmed, current total bed count published on the trust's own site, so we've deliberately not guessed a number here.

A trust that stayed independent

The trust in its current form dates to a 1998 merger of the historically separate Ashford Hospital and St Peter's Hospital, gaining Foundation Trust status in December 2010. What's more distinctive is what's happened since: unlike a number of neighbouring Surrey and South East trusts that have gone through further mergers or acquisitions in the years since, Ashford and St Peter's has twice come close to a further merger and stepped back from it both times. A proposed merger with Epsom Hospital was explored in 2012, and a more advanced proposal to merge with Royal Surrey County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust ran from 2014 before being formally abandoned in November 2016.

For staff, that track record matters in a practical sense: this is a trust that has repeatedly chosen organisational stability over consolidation, even when merger discussions were live and advanced. If you've had experience elsewhere of a merger disrupting reporting lines, systems or job security, Ashford and St Peter's has a genuinely different recent history on that specific point compared with several of its regional neighbours.

What makes Ashford and St Peter's distinctive

• An Outstanding-rated critical care unit. St Peter's critical care service was rated Outstanding across every CQC domain in the trust's 2018 comprehensive inspection — safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led all Outstanding, a genuinely rare result for any core service at any acute trust.
• A deliberate emergency/elective split across two sites. Concentrating planned surgery and diagnostics at Ashford Hospital, separate from the emergency pressures at St Peter's, is a specific operating model intended to protect elective capacity — worth knowing if consistent, less-frequently-cancelled theatre lists matter to your specialty.
• A large, well-defined single-region catchment. Serving more than 410,000 people as the largest acute provider in its specific part of Surrey gives the trust a clear, stable patient base rather than competing directly with an overlapping neighbouring trust for the same population.
• A meaningfully large virtual outpatient service. Around 117,000 virtual outpatient appointments a year is a substantial share of total outpatient activity, relevant if flexible or remote-enabled clinical work is something you're looking for.

CQC rating: an honest read

Ashford and St Peter's overall CQC rating is Good, with well-led also rated Good — figures that trace back to a comprehensive inspection carried out in June-July 2018. At that inspection, safe was rated Requires Improvement across the trust as a whole, while effective, caring, responsive and well-led were all Good, and critical care was singled out as Outstanding. That 2018 headline is now several years old, so it's worth weighing alongside more recent, service-specific inspection activity.

On the positive side, more recent focused inspections paint a broadly encouraging current picture: medical care services (including older people's care) were rated Good in a report published 30 July, following an unannounced inspection in March 2024, and maternity services at St Peter's were rated Good in a report published 26 September 2025. The one clear dip we found in more recent inspection activity is that well-led for surgical services specifically at St Peter's Hospital dropped from Good to Requires Improvement — a specific, current concern worth raising directly if you're applying to surgery at that site, even though the trust's overall headline rating remains Good.

2025 NHS Staff Survey: a solid, above-average result

We pulled these figures directly from the trust's own 2025 NHS Staff Survey Benchmark Report, published via the NHS Staff Survey Coordination Centre, rather than a secondary summary. Ashford and St Peter's is benchmarked against the "Acute and Acute & Community Trusts" group of 121 organisations nationally.

The response rate was 42% (2,225 completed questionnaires) — below the group's median response rate of 47%, meaning a smaller share of staff took part here than at some peer trusts. Scores across the nine People Promise themes, each measured on a 0-10 scale, came in above the benchmark average on every single measure:

The consistent pattern — above average on all nine themes, without a single below-average score — is a genuinely positive one, though it comes with a real caveat: a below-median response rate means those figures represent a smaller, potentially less representative slice of the workforce than at trusts with stronger participation. Both facts are worth holding in mind together rather than reading only the flattering half.

Pay and Fringe HCAS at Ashford and St Peter's

This is a genuinely important point that's easy to get wrong: unlike most trusts outside London, Ashford and St Peter's does attract High Cost Area Supplement. Both St Peter's Hospital in Chertsey and Ashford Hospital sit within the Fringe HCAS zone — the ring of areas just outside Greater London, covering parts of Surrey, Hertfordshire, Essex, Kent and Berkshire that border the capital, historically defined by Primary Care Trust boundaries that predate the 2013 NHS reorganisation. The Fringe rate adds 5% of basic salary on top of standard Agenda for Change pay, subject to published minimum and maximum amounts — see our 2026/27 pay scales guide for the exact current figures.

This puts Ashford and St Peter's in a genuinely different pay position from a trust just a modest distance further from London that sits entirely outside any HCAS zone — worth knowing if you're comparing job offers across Surrey, since two trusts that look similar on the surface can carry a real pay difference purely down to which side of the Fringe zone boundary they fall on. Doctors and dentists sit outside Agenda for Change entirely, on their own national contract, and HCAS doesn't apply to that contract in the same way.

Ashford and St Peter's Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, not the NHS as a single employer, is your actual legal employer if you work here, which is what continuous service and, where relevant, redundancy pay calculations are based on. As a general acute trust it covers the usual broad range of roles — nursing, medicine, midwifery, allied health professions, pharmacy, healthcare science, and the admin, estates and support staff needed to run two hospital sites. Our nursing and medicine guides walk through how pay progresses at each band, and the Fringe uplift applies on top of every band here.

Ashford and St Peter's vs Frimley Health

Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust is a genuinely fair comparison — both trusts sit in the South East England / Surrey-Berkshire corridor, both fall within the Fringe HCAS zone, and both are acute trusts serving a broadly similar kind of catchment on the edge of the London commuter belt.

The headline: Frimley Health runs more sites and a larger combined bed base, including a dedicated, purpose-built elective hospital at Heatherwood that Ashford and St Peter's doesn't have an equivalent of — though Ashford and St Peter's own Ashford Hospital serves a broadly similar elective-focused function within a two-site rather than three-site model. Both trusts sit in the Fringe HCAS zone, so the pay comparison between them is genuinely like-for-like in a way it wouldn't be against a trust further from London — the real differences are in scale, site count and the specific balance of specialties each runs, which the tools below can help you weigh in more depth.

Careers and training

The trust's two-site emergency/elective split gives staff a genuinely clear sense of what kind of working environment they're choosing — high-acuity, unpredictable emergency and complex care at St Peter's, versus more predictable, scheduled elective work at Ashford — within a single employer, so moving between the two models doesn't necessarily mean changing trusts. The Outstanding-rated critical care unit at St Peter's is a specific department worth highlighting for anyone specialising in intensive or critical care nursing or medicine, given how rare an Outstanding rating is for any core service nationally.

The trust's sizeable virtual outpatient programme (around 117,000 appointments a year) is also relevant for staff interested in digitally-enabled or remote-delivered care models, which is an increasingly significant part of how outpatient services are run across the NHS. As with any trust, the honest caveat applies: the recent well-led dip in St Peter's surgical services, and the below-median 2025 staff survey response rate covered above, are worth raising directly at interview or with current staff in the specific department you're applying to, rather than assuming the trust's positive overall CQC rating and staff sentiment scores apply identically everywhere.

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Frequently asked questions

Frequently asked questions

What hospitals does Ashford and St Peter's Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust actually run? +

Two sites in Surrey: St Peter's Hospital in Chertsey, the main acute site with A&E, intensive care, maternity and complex medical/surgical care, and Ashford Hospital in Ashford, which focuses on planned care — day-case and orthopaedic surgery, rehabilitation and diagnostics. Splitting emergency and planned work across two sites is a deliberate operating model, intended to protect elective surgery capacity from being cancelled when the emergency site is under pressure.

Has Ashford and St Peter's ever merged with another trust? +

The trust as it exists today was itself formed by a 1998 merger of the historically separate Ashford Hospital and St Peter's Hospital, becoming a Foundation Trust in December 2010. Since then it has twice come close to a further merger — with Epsom Hospital in 2012, and with Royal Surrey County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (proposed in 2014 and formally abandoned in November 2016) — but both fell through, and the trust has remained independent. That's worth knowing if merger-driven organisational change is something you'd rather avoid: this trust has a track record of staying its own, distinct employer even when merger talks were live.

What is Ashford and St Peter's current CQC rating? +

The trust's overall rating is Good, with well-led also rated Good, based on a comprehensive inspection carried out in 2018 — safe was rated Requires Improvement at that time, with effective, caring, responsive and well-led all rated Good, and the critical care unit specifically rated Outstanding. More recent, service-specific inspections show a genuinely mixed but broadly positive current picture: medical care services were rated Good in a report published 30 July (following a March 2024 inspection), and maternity services at St Peter's were rated Good in a report published 26 September 2025. The one notable dip is that well-led for surgical services specifically at St Peter's dropped from Good to Requires Improvement in recent inspection activity — worth asking about directly if you're applying to that department.

Is it true the critical care unit at St Peter's was rated Outstanding? +

Yes — in the trust's 2018 comprehensive CQC inspection, critical care was rated Outstanding across every domain: safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led. That's a genuinely strong result for any core service at any trust, and it's a specific department worth knowing about if intensive/critical care nursing or medicine is your specialty.

What did the 2025 NHS Staff Survey say about working at Ashford and St Peter's? +

A solid, above-average result, pulled directly from the trust's own primary benchmark report. The response rate was 42% (2,225 completed questionnaires) — a little below the 47% median across the trust's 121-organisation benchmarking group, meaning fewer staff took part than at some peer trusts. But of those who did respond, scores across all nine People Promise themes came in above the benchmark average — 'We are always learning' scored 5.78 against a 5.57 average, and 'Staff Engagement' scored 7.02 against 6.74. The honest picture: a genuinely positive sentiment among respondents, tempered by a response rate that's below the median for its peer group.

Does Ashford and St Peter's pay a High Cost Area Supplement? +

Yes — this is one of the more consistently misunderstood points about NHS pay in Surrey. Both St Peter's and Ashford Hospital sit within the Fringe HCAS zone, which covers a ring of areas just outside Greater London, including Surrey districts bordering the capital. Staff here receive the Fringe rate — 5% of basic salary, subject to a published minimum and maximum — on top of standard Agenda for Change pay, unlike a trust just a short distance further from London that might fall outside any HCAS zone entirely. See our 2026/27 pay scales guide and the NHS Pay Calculator for your exact figure.

How many staff and patients does Ashford and St Peter's have? +

The trust reports around 5,300 staff and an annual turnover of roughly £531 million (2025/26 figures from the trust's own site), serving a population of more than 410,000 people across Surrey and the surrounding area — making it the largest acute hospital provider in that specific part of the region. Reported annual activity includes over 40,000 emergency admissions, nearly 64,000 planned inpatient/day-case admissions, more than 122,000 A&E attendances, and over 615,000 outpatient clinic visits, plus around 117,000 virtual outpatient appointments — a meaningfully large share of care now delivered remotely.

How does Ashford and St Peter's compare to Frimley Health? +

They're genuinely comparable — both are acute trusts in the same South East England / Surrey-Berkshire corridor, and both sit in the Fringe HCAS zone. Frimley Health is the larger of the two by site count (three hospitals against Ashford and St Peter's two) and runs a wider elective specialist offering at its purpose-built Heatherwood site, while Ashford and St Peter's is more tightly concentrated around its two-site emergency/planned-care split. See the fuller comparison further down this page.