Milton Children's Hospice

Updated 7 April 2020

Milton Children’s Hospice is operated by East Anglia's Children’s Hospices (EACH). It is one of three hospices operated by EACH, one in Ipswich and one in Norfolk. EACH provides support for children and young people with life-limiting or life-threatening conditions, and their families and carers, across the counties of Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex.

Milton Children's Hospice building is an old rectory set on the outskirts of the village of Milton. The original house has been converted and extended a number of times over the years. The hospice building offers six single bedrooms all of which have direct access to bathroom facilities. There is also a single bedroom suitable for a baby. There are shared areas for relaxation, play and meals as well as therapy rooms, a hydrotherapy pool and an education centre. There are facilities on site for families to stay and there are a number of offices, a library and meeting rooms.

The service provides a range of physical, emotional, social and spiritual support services including end of life care, symptom management, short breaks, psychological and family therapy interventions. It also provides children, young people and their families with support for emotional, physical health and wellbeing through counselling, music therapy, art therapy, specialist play, hydrotherapy, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, practical help in the family home through the ‘Help at Home service’, spiritual care and family information.

The hospice has had a registered manager in post since January 2018.

Updated 7 April 2020

Milton Children’s Hospice is operated by East Anglia's Children’s Hospices (EACH). The service has six single patient rooms and one single bedroom suitable for a baby. Facilities include therapy rooms, a hydrotherapy pool and an education centre. There are facilities on site for families to stay and there are a number of offices, a library and meeting rooms.

The service provides a range of physical, emotional, social and spiritual support services including end of life care, symptom management, short breaks, psychological and family therapy interventions. It also provides children, young people and their families with support for emotional, physical health and wellbeing through counselling, music therapy, art therapy, specialist play, hydrotherapy, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, practical help in the family home through the ‘Help at Home service’, spiritual care and family information.

The provider, EACH, runs three hospices in East Anglia. The three hospices work very closely together, sharing knowledge and expertise as well as sharing therapy and nursing teams to meet service demand.

We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology. We carried out the short- notice announced inspection on 9 January 2020.

To get to the heart of patients’ experiences of care and treatment, we ask the same five questions of all services: are they safe, effective, caring, responsive to people's needs, and well-led? Where we have a legal duty to do so we rate services’ performance against each key question as outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate.

Throughout the inspection, we took account of what people told us and how the provider understood and complied with the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

Services we rate

Our rating of this service stayed the same. We rated it as Outstanding overall.

We found outstanding practice in relation to hospice care for children and young people:

• Staff repeatedly went the extra mile in their care and were committed to find ways to make a difference to children and their families. Staff went above and beyond expectations to establish and meet patient’s individual needs and were passionate about the care they delivered. Staff were highly motivated to offer care that was kind and promoted dignity. Staff recognised the totality of people’s needs and supported the emotional needs of children and their families and children and their families emotional and social needs were seen as being as important as their physical needs. Relatives felt truly cared for and that they mattered.
• Leaders promoted a positive culture where challenge was welcomed. Every member of staff we spoke with told us they were proud to work for the service and that the leadership team were accessible, approachable and actively sought their input. The service had formed effective working relationships with other care providers, local faith leaders, community organisations and charities providing national guidance. The service had taken a leadership role in the local healthcare environment to meet the needs of the local population through the development of the managed clinical network and hosting the regional palliative care network. This ensured that the service had strong links with external stakeholders and influenced decision making in the sector.

We found areas of good practice in relation to hospice care for children and young people:

• 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, 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 evidence-based care and treatment, gave patients 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 patients, supported them to make decisions about their care, and had access to good information.
• Children’s individual needs and preferences were central to the delivery of tailored services. The service had developed a truly holistic assessment model which placed children and their families at the centre of care planning. Children and their families were asked what they wanted to achieve while being under EACH’s care and staff were passionate about ensuring these goals were achieved and that children and their families were engaged with the care planning process. The service planned and provided care based on patient and family needs and had found innovative ways to improve access for non-emergency admissions. The service strived to ensure they were inclusive and welcoming to patients and their families from all faiths. The service had developed innovative teams to assist patients in need such as the symptom control team and the long-term ventilator community outreach service.

Heidi Smoult

Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals

Updated 7 April 2020

Milton Children’s Hospice is operated by East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices (EACH). Hospice services for children was offered at Milton Children’s hospice.

We rated the service as outstanding overall. The service was rated outstanding in caring and

well-led, and good in safe, responsive and effective.