About us
The Trust’s services are provided from three locations:
• The Countess of Chester Hospital: providing 473 general and acute beds.
• Ellesmere Port Hospital: providing 60 beds as a rehabilitation, intermediate and outpatient facility.
• Tarporley War Memorial Hospital: a base for community services which serve the local rural population.
The Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust employs 5,964 staff (headcount) to provide care and treatment to a population of over 400,000 people living in Chester and West Cheshire which includes Ellesmere Port and Neston as well as the Deeside area of Flintshire.
The Trust works collaboratively within the wider Cheshire and Merseyside Integrated Care System. Due to its location on the border with North Wales, the Trust also works closely with the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board.
The Trust treats patients from England and some parts of Wales. During 2024/2025, there were approximately 643,000 patient attendances (inpatient, A&E, outpatient and diagnostic) ranging from a simple outpatient appointment to major cancer surgery.
The Trust was authorised as a Foundation Trust in 2004. Foundation Trusts were established as public benefit corporations and operate as independent public institutions which are not subject to direction by the Secretary of State for Health or the performance management requirements of the Department of Health. As a Foundation Trust, we set our own strategy within the framework of contracts with our commissioners of health services and other regulatory bodies to continually improve the quality and safety of patient care. We work closely with our local health system partners in the Wirral and Cheshire area and our local communities.
The Trust is arranged into five clinical divisions:
- Urgent Care
- Planned Care
- Diagnostics and Clinical Support Services
- Women and Children’s
- Therapies and Integrated Community Care
Each division has a triumvirate management structure which includes a Divisional Director, Associate Medical Director and Divisional Nursing Director. Divisions are supported by corporate service teams including human resources, finance, and digital services.
Our vision: to achieve outstanding care for our patients and families
Our purpose: to improve the lives of our population by providing safe, kind and effective care.
- Safe: avoiding harm and reducing risk to all
- Kind: considerate and non-judgemental
- Effective: consistently maximising resources to deliver excellent and reliable care.
The Countess of Chester Hospital is the host of the Cheshire West Integrated Care Partnership (ICP) which focuses on developing integrated care in health and social care. For the local NHS, along with Cheshire West and Chester Council, it represents the evolution of our work over recent years. By joining up services which are currently provided separately, we can make better patient decisions by pooling experience, expertise, and resources. By focussing on preventing ill-health and unnecessary hospital admissions we can ensure local services are sustainable for the future.
The Trust has signed up to a 'Purpose Coalition' to provide equal opportunities in care and recruitment, among other areas. The Countess will produce a Levelling Up Impact Report to measure its impact against 14 'Levelling Up Goals'. The Levelling Up Impact Report will highlight best practice at the Countess of Chester and identify where more can be done to promote equality in health outcomes in the communities it serves.
View our Care Quality Commission Report (February 2024)
View our Learning Disability and / or Autism information here