The job of the hospitals run by the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is to provide the best possible acute hospital care for a tertiary catchment area of up to 822,500 people. Acute hospital care means specialist care for patients who need treatment for serious conditions that cannot be dealt with by health service staff working in the community.  

The Trust provides a full range of acute clinical services, including more specialist services such as oncology and radiotherapy, neonatology, orthopaedics, plastic surgery, ophthalmology, rheumatology, paediatric medicine and surgery.

Every year our staff of 5,700 treat more than 600,000 people from Norfolk, from neighbouring counties and from further afield. Our patients are referred to us by around 100 local GP practices but also from other acute hospitals and other primary care trusts around the country.  

Over the past several years the quality of care we offer has been independently rated as among the best in the country:

• The 2009 National Patient Safety Agency results reported NNUH as Excellent for privacy, cleanliness and catering 
• NNUH was rated by the Care Quality Commission as Fair for quality of services and Good for use of resources in the 2008/09 annual healthcheck.
• The 2007 Healthcare Commission national in-patient survey placed NNUH top for patients' satisfaction with quality of care amongst all multi-specialty hospitals
• The Dr Foster Hospital Guide 2007 placed us among the best hospitals in the country for having low mortality rates
• In the Dr Foster/Saga 2006 Good Hospital Guide, we were rated as the best performer in Norfolk and Suffolk and a top quartile performer nationally for the quality of care for patients aged over 50

As an NHS Foundation Trust, we are accountable for our performance to the independent regulator Monitor.  Monitor is accountable to Parliament. Most of our funding (90 per cent) comes from primary care trusts (PCTs) that are funded by the Department of Health and are responsible for commissioning local health services. Our main PCT partner is the primary care trust NHS Norfolk.  We are based in the NHS East of England strategic health authority area.