The Priory Hospital Middleton St George

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• Overview
• Kindness, compassion and dignity
• Treating people as individuals
• Independence, choice and control
• Responding to people’s immediate needs
• Workforce wellbeing and enablement

This means we looked for evidence that the service involved people and treated them with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.

At our last assessment we rated this key question good. At this assessment the rating has remained good.

Staff treated patients with compassion and kindness. They respected patients’ privacy and dignity. They understood the individual needs of patients and supported patients to understand and manage their care, treatment or condition. Staff involved patients in care planning and risk assessment and actively sought their feedback on the quality of care provided. Staff informed and involved families and carers appropriately.

We have not awarded this service a score for Caring.

Find out about when we will not publish a key question score and what we look at when we assess Caring.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. The service always treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity. Staff treated colleagues from other organisations with kindness and respect.

We observed staff interacting with patients and saw that they were discreet, respectful, and responsive, providing patients with help, emotional support, and advice at the time they needed it. Staff maintained the confidentiality of information about patients.

The patients we spoke with said staff treated them with dignity and respect. They stated that staff showed them understanding and were kind to them. Out of the 51 patients who completed a service exit questionnaire 94% of them felt staff knew, understood and listened to their needs.

We witnessed one patient ask staff if they could arrange to pick up a purchase from a nearby retail park, the patient was anxious about this, and the retailer would not deliver to the hospital. The staff member spoke with the retailer in front of the patient and arranged to collect the item that day. The patient was clearly excited about the purchase and appreciated the staff co-operation to get it as quickly as possible.

The service had received 31 compliments. All of these were from patients praising staff.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. The service treated people as individuals and made sure people’s care, support and treatment met people’s needs and preferences. They took account of people’s strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics.

The service was able to adjust for disabled patients, for example, by ensuring disabled people’s access to premises and by meeting patients’ specific communication needs. There were assisted bathrooms on each ward. Each ward has a de-stimulation room with lights and music. Patient care records included care plans and occupational therapy assessments which included strategies for staff to use if patients were distressed.

Staff ensured that patients could obtain information on treatments, local services, patients’ rights, how to complain and so on. There were patient notice boards on each ward. They contained information on patients’ rights, complaints, advocacy, safeguarding and mental health law.

Managers ensured that staff and patients had easy access to interpreters or signers where they were needed.

Patients had a choice of food to meet their dietary requirements; this included access to special diets for religious purposes and to account for allergies and intolerances. Information in care records was transferred to the staff that were preparing meals in the kitchen.

Staff ensured that patients had access to appropriate spiritual support.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. The service promoted people’s independence, so people knew their rights and had choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing.

Patients and their families told us staff were available to speak to when needed. They reported this had a positive impact on their wellbeing. In the patient discharge survey, all 51 patients reported they had known who to speak to if they felt unhappy.

Patients told us they had access to independent advocates where needed. Staff used a variety of communication methods with patients on the wards. Online translation services could be used to produce information in different languages.

Staff gave patients access to activities, such as board games, bingo, pet therapy, gymnasium, cooking and arts and crafts.

We saw activity timetables displayed on patient noticeboards on the wards. Patients told us that access to activities within the hospital were good.

The occupational therapy team devised therapeutic activities following discussions with patients and staff on the wards. Care records evidenced staff provided both group and individualised activities for patients.

Patients care plans included the patient's choices and preferences, allowing for activities to be arranged accordingly.

Quality Statement Score:3.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. The service listened to and understood people’s needs, views and wishes. Staff responded to people’s needs in the moment and acted to minimise any discomfort, concern or distress.

Staff were aware of and dealt with any specific risk issues, such as falls or pressure ulcers and care planned for these accordingly. Staff we spoke with could explain any specific risk issues a patient might have, such as self-harm. They monitored physical health problems and acted where needed.

Staff identified and responded to changing risks to, or posed by, patients. Staff had handovers after every shift and concerns about patients were discussed and any necessary actions were recorded.

Staff used de-escalation techniques to reduce the need for physical interventions when patient’s behaviours became heightened. Staff we spoke to knew patients well and understood their triggers and how to de-escalate concerns.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. The service cared about and promoted the wellbeing of their staff, and supported and enabled staff to always deliver person-centred care.

Staff felt positive and proud about working at the hospital. They told us that the teams worked well with each other and within the ward teams staff enjoyed working with their colleagues. Staff described a culture of teamwork and support from colleagues

Staff had access to support for their own physical and emotional health needs through an occupational health service. There was an employee assistance programme which provided staff with access to counselling.

The overall staff sickness rate over the previous 12 months, was 4.26%.