St Luke's Hospice Thurrock

Updated 4 May 2023

St Luke’s Hospice provides specialist care for people living with a terminal illness and their families. The service delivers care to patients who have been diagnosed with life limiting illnesses within the catchment area of Basildon, Brentwood and Thurrock. The hospice works in partnership with many organisations to provide joined up services and provides advice and support to other professionals on issues surrounding specialist palliative and end-of-life care.

St Luke’s Hospice Thurrock is a purpose-built state-of-the-art modern hospice, with on-site parking for patients and visitors and has wheelchair access to all care areas, the site is accessible to patients of all abilities.

The inpatient unit is a spacious six bedded purpose-built unit where patients are cared for in private rooms, each with en-suite facilities. Dedicated facilities within the inpatient unit such as a specialist bath, terrace overlooking the grounds with views and free Wi-Fi for patients and visitors allows the service to deliver care that meets the specific holistic needs of all patients and support their families.

A dedicated family suite is also available. The specialist palliative care team provide a range of services tailored to the needs of each patient.

The hospice provides a counselling service for children and young people. The service provides early intervention, one-to-one counselling/creative therapies, and support work, with all services available to any child and young person up to 19 years old within South West Essex.

There is a carers support coordinator who provides support information and advice for anyone caring for someone living with a progressive life limiting illness. The service provides support groups, individual carers support needs assessment and outreach work with community groups that support carers.

The hospice provides an adult community counselling service where clients can access couples or group counselling and support with qualified counsellors providing emotional and psychological support for anyone who is caring for or adjusted to living with a life-threatening/life limiting illness as well as offering support for those who are bereaved from age 14 upwards.

Other services provided on a clinic basis at St Luke’s Hospice Thurrock include the South Essex lymphoedema service (SELS) which provides therapeutic services and interventions which are aimed to assist the service user to treat their symptoms and maintain their independence and the Wellbeing information and support service. This service provides specialist palliative and end of life care for people with progressive life challenging illness, through a wide range of care, treatment groups and activities focusing on holistic, emotional and social support to promote resilience, wellbeing and independence.

Some of the services provided by St Luke’s Hospice Thurrock do not fall under the remit of the Care Quality Commission.

At the time of our inspection, the 6 bedded inpatient unit was not commissioned and there were no patients there, so was not included as part of this inspection. At this inspection we only inspected the lymphoedema service as this is a regulated activity.

The service has had a registered manager in post since August 2021 and registered with CQC in July 2021. The service registered with the CQC to provide the regulated activities:

• Personal care
• Treatment of disease, disorder, or injury

Activity for the lymphoedema service from December 2021-December 2022:

• Total number of new patient referrals - 662
• Number of initial assessments - 639
• Patients seen or assessed by phone - 2,321
• Home visits - 9
• Number of patients on waiting list in December 2022 -115

Updated 4 May 2023

We carried out a short announced comprehensive inspection of St Luke’s Hospice Thurrock as part of our inspection programme. We inspected all our key lines of enquiries: safe, effective, caring, responsive, and well led.

This is the first inspection of this service since they registered this location in July 2021.

We rated it as good because:

• The service had enough staff to care for patients and keep them safe. Staff had training in key skills, understood how to protect patients from abuse, and managed safety well. The service controlled infection risk well. Staff assessed risks to patients and acted on them. The service managed incidents well and learned lessons from them.
• Staff provided good care and treatment. Managers made sure staff were competent. Staff worked well together for the benefit of patients, supported them to make decisions about their care, and had access to good information. Key services were available five days a week.
• Staff treated patients with compassion and kindness, respected their privacy and dignity, took account of their individual needs, and helped them understand their conditions. They provided emotional support to patients, families, and carers.
• The service planned care to meet the needs of local people, took account of patients’ individual needs, and made it easy for people to give feedback. People could access the service when they needed it, and some did not have to wait too long for treatment.
• 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 focused on the needs of patients receiving care. Staff were clear about their roles and accountabilities. The service engaged well with patients and the community to plan and manage services and all staff were committed to improving services continually.
• The service was innovative in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and changing landscapes. We heard lots of examples of innovation, continuous improvement, and learning. Well-being was very much on the agenda for the management team, and they worked hard to make the hospice a good place to work.

However:

• There was no audit programme in place to monitor quality, operational processes, and systems to identify where actions should be taken, however this was currently under development.

Updated 4 May 2023

We have not previously rated this service. We rated it as good. See the overall summary for details.