The Care Quality Commission
  • Hospice service

Christopher's Children's Hospice

Overall: Outstanding read more about inspection ratings

Old Portsmouth Road, Artington, Guildford, Surrey, GU3 1LP (01483) 230960

Provided and run by:
Shooting Star Children's Hospices

All Inspections

6 July 2023

During a monthly review of our data

We carried out a review of the data available to us about Christopher's Children's Hospice on 6 July 2023. We have not found evidence that we need to carry out an inspection or reassess our rating at this stage.

This could change at any time if we receive new information. We will continue to monitor data about this service.

If you have concerns about Christopher's Children's Hospice, you can give feedback on this service.

24 May 2022

During a routine inspection

Our rating of this location stayed the same. We rated it as outstanding because:

  • Staff treated children and young people with compassion and kindness, respected their privacy and dignity, and helped them understand their conditions. They provided emotional support to children and young people, families and carers and went above and beyond what was expected to provide support. Children, young people and families were truly respected and valued and empowered as partners in their care. Staff were highly motivated and inspired to provide care that is kind and promotes dignity. Staff found innovative ways to meet the totality of children, young people and their family’s needs. Children, young people and families were active partners in their care and staff empowered them to have a voice and realise their potential.
  • The service planned care to meet the needs of local people, took account of children and young people’s individual needs, and made it easy for people to give feedback. People could access the service when they needed it and did not have to wait too long for treatment. There were innovative approaches to providing integrated person-centred pathways of care that involve other service providers.
  • Leaders ran services well using reliable information systems and supported staff to develop their skills. Staff understood the service’s vision and values, and how to apply them in their work. Staff felt respected, supported and valued. They were focused on the needs of children and young people receiving care. Staff were clear about their roles and accountabilities and committed to improving services continually. There were consistently high levels of constructive engagement with children, young people and their families. Services were developed with the full participation of those who use them, staff and external partners as equal partners. The service took a leadership role in its health system to identify and proactively address challenges and meet the needs of the population.

We also found the following areas of good practice;

  • The service had enough staff to care for children and young people and keep them safe. Staff had training in key skills, understood how to protect children and young people from abuse, and managed safety well. The service controlled infection risks well. Staff assessed risks to children and young people, acted on them and kept good care records. They managed medicines well. The service managed safety incidents well and learned lessons from them.
  • Staff provided good care and treatment, gave children and young people enough to eat and drink, and gave them pain relief when they needed it. Managers monitored the effectiveness of the service and made sure staff were competent. Staff worked well together for the benefit of children and young people, advised them and their families on how to lead healthier lives, supported them to make decisions about their care, and had access to good information. Key services were available seven days a week.

28 July 2016

During a routine inspection

Christopher’s Children’s Hospice is provided by Shooting Star Chase, which is a registered charity caring for babies, children and young people with life-limiting conditions, and their families. Christopher’s Children’s Hospice provides support from babies to young people up to the age of 21, they support families from diagnosis to end of life and throughout bereavement with a range of nursing, practical, emotional and medical care. Their care service includes overnight short breaks, Hospice at Home, day care, symptom management, end-of-life care, bereavement care and a comprehensive range of therapies and support groups for the whole family.

The hospice is a nurse led service and children and young people's health needs are met by a range of health professionals during their stay. This includes specialist children’s nurses, adult learning disability nurses, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, social workers and the care team. A local GP practice provides daily medical cover for the hospice to review children’s medicine and respond to any health needs. A children’s palliative care consultant oversees the symptom management and end of life care.

This inspection was carried out 28 and 29 July 2016 and was unannounced. Christopher’s Children’s Hospice is registered to provide bed based care for up to nine children at a time. At the time of our visit six children and young people were using the bed based unit and the hospice service had around 700 families registered as qualifying for the service.

There was a registered manager in place. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are 'registered persons'. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

Christopher’s Children’s Hospice is an outstanding service. It is focussed on the individual needs of the children, young people and parents who they support, at the time they need it in a way and place that best suits them and their whole family. Parents spoke overwhelmingly of the positive support, guidance and healthcare interventions their children had received. They were full of praise for the staff in terms of their kindness, compassion and knowledge about end of life matters. Parents viewed the staff as experts in their knowledge and skills when supporting children and young people with complex health needs.

Staff were playful, full of energy and maintained a high level of engagement with children, young people and their parents and parents consistently told us how much they valued the normality of the service and the effort staff made to ensure their children had the same experiences as other children.

Parents and professionals spoke of a service that was tailor-made for children and their families saying that staff went ‘the extra mile’ with empathy and compassion. Throughout the end of life care of children and young people parents were given information and kept involved to enable their children to continue to receive parent led care. Informed consent was embodied into all work that was undertaken at the hospice. The various departments within this hospice worked well together so that people had a seamless experience of moving from one department to another as the need arose.

The end of life support provided was highly personalised and tailored to meet the needs and wishes of each individual child, young person and their family with sensitivity and compassion. The hospice was supportive of family’s spirituality. They strived to offer support that recognised spirituality as that ‘which connects us to each other and includes whatever gives each person meaning, purpose, value, self -worth and hope’. Staff were sensitive to parents’ individual spiritual needs and thought of ways to meet these needs when they experienced difficult times.

Staff were motivated and keen to convey to inspectors their pride in working at the service. Staff were involved in the development of working practice, listened to, empowered with training and supported to offer excellent end of life healthcare and support.

The registered manager promoted a culture of openness and excellence. They listened to people and staff, involving them in the running and development of the service. They actively sought out their views and used feedback as an opportunity to improve and develop the service. There was a kindness and warmth about the management team that made them approachable to everyone and people knew them by their first names and told us they were visible and solved matters raised.

The provider creatively launched their new values ‘Professionalism, Respect, Integrity, Diversity and Excellence’ under the acronym PRIDE. Throughout our inspection we observed and heard from parents, young people and professionals that staff always demonstrating these values in how they behaved. Staff demonstrated a strong person centred culture. This was represented by the provider’s fingerprint logo the Friendlies, a group of lively fingerprint characters designed to ‘break down the misconception that children’s hospices are sad places’. By using multiple logos the provider had created interactive branding which allowed the community, parents, staff and children to engage with the aims and values of the service in a creative way.

Governance of the service was of a high standard that was benchmarked against similar services and communication was very good. The Board of Trustees were appropriately informed and closely scrutinised how the hospice operated ensuring the registered manager was held to account in ensuring a high quality service was delivered. There was parent representation on the board of Trustees and we found examples that showed parent representatives had real influence and involvement in a number of issues within the hospice The quality assurance systems in place showed that people were right to have the confidence in this local hospice.

The hospice worked innovatively in partnership with many local and national organisations to develop local services for their community and to inform and improve practice in the children’s hospice movement. We saw how this partnership working had enable young people to access appropriate adult services when they became too old for children’s services. The hospice had also developed close working with the neo-natal team to support families with new born babies at the end of their lives.

26 February 2014

During a routine inspection

We found children and their families were provided with information and were involved in the assessment process and planning of their care. Children and their parents were treated with dignity and respect. Comments included, 'I was nervous initially but it's a sanctuary here where you feel totally accepted.'

We found children's nutritional needs were assessed and planned. Menus provided choice and alternatives to ensure nutritional needs were met. Comments from parents and children included, 'The food is lovely. He has it pureed and they make sure all the food is pureed separately so that he has a taste of everything', 'I know he will get three lovely meals here' and 'Sometimes I don't want what is on the menu so they will do pasta for me and some nights they send out for pizza.'

We found the service was clean and tidy and there were systems in place to prevent the spread of infection.

We found the whole environment was calm and relaxing but there was also a feeling of fun and homeliness for the children. The environment was spacious, secure and had appropriate equipment to meet children's needs.

We found there were sufficient staff on duty to care for children and to provide support to parents. The staff had access to clinical supervision, support, training, development opportunities and annual appraisal to ensure they had the required skills and knowledge for their roles. Comments from children and parents regarding the staff team included, 'The staff are lovely ' really friendly; they always ask how we are and they know what they are doing', 'Staff are very caring; there are lots around and they look after us as parents. They are kind and knowledgeable and I trust them' and 'I love going there; it's brilliant. The nurses have been helping me to be independent with my medication. They watch me and test me.'

We found the service had a complaints process and parents and an older child spoken with told us they felt able to complain.

4 December 2012

During a routine inspection

The parents we spoke with said their children were well cared for. They said the staff were friendly and responsive, and tried to make their child's stay at the hospice as enjoyable as possible. For example " we are always very pleased with our stay at Christopher's. We always feel welcomed. The staff are very friendly, caring and professional. The facilities are first class" , "The support our family has received has been extremely good and all your staff are very highly skilled and professional. They are very much valued by us", "The care my child receives at Chase is outstanding thank you".

We observed that the hospice was decorated in a bright and child-friendly way. There were various activity areas which included a sensory room, music room, hydrotherapy swimming pool, art room and a 'chillout room' for teenagers. There were age-appropriate toys, games and books for both teenagers and younger children. We saw photographs on the wall of children taking part in activities.

The families we spoke with said that the staff were very skilled and supportive. The interactions we observed between staff and children were positive and where able children responded well.