We carried out a review of the data available to us about Haven House 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 Haven House Children's Hospice, you can give feedback on this service.
Haven House Children's Hospice provides overnight respite care for up to six children and young people aged from birth to 18 years who may have complex needs associated with life-limiting or life-threatening conditions. They also provide some day care. Haven House will accept initial referrals from anyone in the community who knows a child with a life limiting condition or life-threatening conditions. Additionally, they provide community and day therapeutic and nursing services in the home or at the hospice.
Haven House offers a multi-professional approach to the health, social care and education of children who attend the service. At the time of our inspection, there were currently 387 children including siblings open to the services and they and their families accessing their provision in a variety of ways. Parents were able to negotiate with Haven House about the most suitable and convenient time for their child to receive support. This could be provided as half days, overnights and in some situations blocks of time to allow parents time to have a holiday or visit family abroad.
In addition to the respite care offered to children at Haven House, there was support for parents and siblings. This support ranged from a specialist toy loan library, complimentary therapies for adults including Reflexology and Rejuvanessence (head and facial massage designed to help relaxation), a bereavement team and an expert parent programme designed to give training and confidence to parents caring for their children. The family flat provided adjacent accommodation for parents and siblings to stay so they could be near their child or young person. The flat incorporated the Butterfly Suite as a specially adapted cold room to provide end of life and post death care.
The 'Hospice at Home' service was registered with Care Quality Commission (CQC) with the aim of providing families with choices when their child was nearing the end of their life and they wish them to die with them at home. Additionally, Haven House had nurses with neonatal experience to support babies with complex needs associated with their conditions. The hospice had a registered manager in post. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the CQC to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are 'registered persons'. Registered persons have a legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act and associated Regulations about how the service is run. The charity had seven retail shops.
We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology and the inspection was announced. The inspection was 10 and 11 March 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.
Our rating of this hospice stayed the same. We rated it as Good overall.
However, we also found the following issues that the service provider needs to improve:
Following this inspection, we told the provider that it should make other improvements, even though a regulation had not been breached, to help the service improve. Details are at the end of the report.
Nigel Acheson
Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals
Haven House Children's Hospice provides overnight respite care for up to five children and young people aged from birth to 19 years who may have complex needs associated with life-limiting or life-threatening conditions. They also provide some day care. Haven House will accept initial referrals from anyone in the community who knows a child with a life limiting condition or complex health conditions which are likely to shorten their life.
Haven House offers a multi-professional approach to the health, social care and education of children who attend the service. At time of our inspection, they provided respite support to approximately 100 children and their families, the majority of whom received up to 20 days of care yearly. Parents were able to negotiate with Haven House about the most suitable and convenient time for their child to receive support. This could be provided as half days, overnights and in some situations blocks of time to allow parents time to have a holiday or visit family abroad.
In addition to the respite care offered to children at Haven House, there was support for parents and siblings. This support ranged from a specialist toy loan library, complimentary therapies for adults including Reflexology and Rejuvanessence (head and facial massage designed to help relaxation), the Butterfly suite used as accommodation for children which allows parents to stay in adjacent accommodation so their can be near their children, a bereavement team and an expert parent programme designed to give training and confidence to parents caring for their children.
There were also a number of services being developed to support families. The ‘Hospice at Home’ service has recently been registered with CQC with the aim of providing families with choices when their child was nearing the end of their life and they wish them to die with them at home. Additionally, Haven House had also employed a neonatal nurse to support babies with complex needs associated with their conditions.
The service had a registered manager in post. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have a legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act and associated Regulations about how the service is run.
Staff, volunteers and trustees all held a shared vision to provide high quality care for children and young people with life limiting conditions. In order to achieve this staff were highly trained and supported to undertake their roles.
Care that was offered to children and young people was personalised and reflected their needs. Care plans were comprehensive and constantly reviewed so they were up to date. Practical and emotional support was provided to children and their families throughout their contact with Haven House, this included after the death of a child.
Children and young people had their health care needs met by professionals within Haven House and by community health and social care professionals. There was evidence professionals worked with each other in the interests of the child. The provider met the nutritional needs of children and young people and ensured they received their medicines as prescribed. There were appropriate infection control measures in place.
Staff used a number of communication methods to seek consent from children and young people. Where this was not possible, measures were in place to make sure their rights were protected and decisions about their care and treatment made in their best interests.
Parents told us they felt their children were safe at Haven House. Staff knew what action to take if they consider any young person was at risk of harm. There were a number of checks in place to make sure only suitable staff and volunteers were recruited. Staffing levels were sufficient to meet children’s needs.
The care that was provided was characterized by compassion and warmth. Staff were knowledgeable about the children they were caring for and ensured the care maintained the child’s privacy and dignity. Haven House were mindful of the different spiritual and cultural needs of people, and these could be accommodated during the provision of care and after a child’s death.
Haven House had a commitment to providing high quality care. There were a number of measures in place to actively seek parents' views and to act on comments and suggestions made. In addition, there were internal measures to monitor and audit the service, to learn from any incidents and accidents and to anticipate any future difficulties and take action to minimise them.
Senior managers provided strong leadership. Staff and parents were positive about the role of senior managers and how they were open and approachable. Senior managers were constantly monitoring the service and considering ways it could be improved for the existing children and young people who used the service, but also ways they could support more children in the community.
People's needs were assessed and care and treatment was planned and delivered in line with their individual care plan. We reviewed the records for ten children who used the service. All had a care plan in place, although some had not been reviewed for over a year.
One parent who spoke with us said "They are amazing, very professional, but very warm and caring. They look after my son very well." Another said "I find them very supportive, I am very pleased he has this place to go to and they always try to help."
Records showed that food and drink met the religious or cultural needs of children who used the service. We noted in the care plans that religious preferences had been noted.
Suitable arrangements were in place to ensure that people were safeguarded against the risk of abuse. The provider had a Safeguarding policy and this recognised various types of abuse, such as emotional, physical, sexual abuse and neglect.
We reviewed the files for six members of staff and found that appropriate checks were undertaken in most files before staff began work.
We saw a copy of the complaints policy which stated complaints would be acknowledged within two days and dealt with within 28 days.
All staff we spoke to said they would recommend the service to their friends. Many said they would not work in the service if they had not believed they had made a difference.
All relatives spoken to described the service in very positive terms. One relative told us how she "totally trusted people here", another how "they surpass all my requirements". Another called it "outstanding".