Background to this inspection
Updated
10 June 2016
We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.
The inspection took place on 12 and 17 May 2016 and we gave 48 hours notice of the inspection to the manager. The inspection team consisted of two adult social care inspectors, a pharmacist and a specialist professional advisor (SPA). The SPA had considerable experience as a nurse working in hospice services.
Before our inspection we reviewed the information we held about the hospice, including the Provider Information Return (PIR). This is a form in which we ask the provider to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We reviewed notifications of incidents that the provider had sent us since the last inspection.
During the inspection we spoke with three people who were using the service and two relatives. We observed the care and support provided to people. We spoke with the registered manager and 13 members of staff. We looked all around the premises. We looked at care records for three people who were receiving care and treatment at the hospice. We also looked at staff rotas, recruitment records for six new members of staff and staff training records. We looked at how the quality of the service was monitored. We inspected the storage of medicines, the paperwork used to record the ordering, disposal and administration of medicines, and carried out stock checks of controlled drugs.
Updated
10 June 2016
The Marie Curie Hospice, Liverpool provides specialist palliative care and support for adults with a terminal illness. The hospice service is available to all, free of charge. We last inspected Marie Curie Hospice, Liverpool on 19 September 2013 when we found the service to be compliant in all of the areas we looked at.
The service is required to have a registered manager. 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. At the time of our visit the hospice had a registered manager and a number of other senior staff with responsibility for various aspects of the service.
The hospice provides an in-patient service for a maximum of 30 people, also day services and out-patient clinics. They provide social and emotional support in people’s own homes but this does not include nursing or personal care.
In-patient care is provided by a specialist team of doctors, nurses, healthcare assistants, therapists and social workers. They are supported by housekeeping and maintenance teams, administration staff and volunteers.
During our visits we saw that the premises were safe and clean and a programme of regular planned maintenance was in place. The hospice was supported by a comprehensive pharmacy service and policies, procedures and support documentation were in place to ensure that medicines were stored, handled, administered and disposed of in a safe and appropriate manner.
Staff received annual mandatory training and were supported in their roles by the management team. People who used the service had a choice of nutritious meals and every effort was made to accommodate individual dietary needs and preferences. People’s capacity to make decisions and give consent was assessed and recorded in accordance with the Mental Capacity Act (2005).
People who used the service, and their families, told us that they were treated with kindness, compassion and respect.
The quality of the service was assessed and monitored regularly by a series of auditing tools. People who used the service, and their families, were encouraged to give feedback and their observations and comments were published and acted on.