The Yorkshire Clinic

On this page

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

Caring – this means we looked for evidence that the provider 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 changed to outstanding. This meant people were truly respected and valued as individuals; and empowered as partners in their care in an exceptional service.

This service scored 95 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

We scored the service as 4. The evidence showed an exceptional standard. The service was exceptional at treating people with kindness, empathy and compassion and in how they respected people’s privacy and dignity. Staff always treated colleagues from other organisations with kindness and respect.

The Yorkshire Clinic adopted the Dignity in Care campaign which was launched in November 2023 and aimed to put dignity and respect at the heart of UK care services. The campaigns core values support a culture of improving the quality-of-care and the experience of people using services. Services following this campaign ensure changes are made through the use of dignity champions, dignity training, implementing a ten-point dignity challenge, participate in dignity awareness campaigns and audit to ensure effectiveness.

The service also used the ‘Essence of Care 2010’ processes of benchmarking aspects of care in a structured approach to share and compare practices. This enables healthcare professionals to identify best practice and standards of excellence. The Essence of Care 2010 focuses on 12 topics which include communication, food and drink, prevention and management of pain, personal hygiene, record keeping, respect and dignity and promoting health and wellbeing.

The service had developed clear Customer Care Standards which ensured staff working within each team or department were working to a consistently high standard. Key points for the team, within these standards were: ‘Always give people more than they expect’, ‘They may forget your name, but they will never forget how you made them feel’. We reviewed the standards fully, which provided comprehensive and clear expectations that each team and individual would follow.

The service ensured people were truly respected and valued as individuals; and empowered as partners in their care in an exceptional service. Care given to patients was person-centred and staff treated patients with dignity and respect. The provider took people's wishes into account and respected their choices, to achieve the best possible outcomes for them. Staff treated patients as individuals and made sure their care, support and treatment met their needs and preferences.

Family members and people close to the patient were encouraged to be involved in their care, support and treatment of their loved ones. Patients fed back that care was excellent and staff were compassionate and caring.

We observed interactions between staff and patients as part of our assessment and saw staff were discreet and responsive to patient's needs. Call bells were answered almost immediately, and we saw information delivered in a caring and respectful manner. We observed the impact of these interactions on patient wellbeing and witnessed calm, compassionate and professional exchanges. All patients we spoke with shared positive stories of the care and treatment they had received by all staff at the clinic.

Theatre staff ensured patients were appropriately covered to preserve dignity and consent obtained to the admittance of any additional staff observing, for example, students.

The service also promoted the wellbeing of their staff and supported them to always deliver person-centred care. Staff were able to receive a health MOT, which looked across aspects of occupational health but also provided health promotion information such as advice and support with smoking cessation and diet and fitness. Staff were also able to utilise the onsite gym facilities, as well as counselling, assess and treat, legal and financial advice.

We scored the service as 4. The evidence showed an exceptional standard. The service treated people as individuals and was exceptional in how they made sure people’s care, support and treatment met people’s needs and preferences. The service took account of people’s strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics.

All patients we spoke with told us they felt involved with all aspects of their care. We saw shared communication streams between staff and patients during our inspection. We saw consistent evidence that care reflected peoples’ unique preferences, wishes relating to cultural background and protected characteristics.

Staff we spoke to consistently demonstrated they understood individual’s needs and preferences. Staff were able to share a range of examples where individual’s needs had been taken into account including those with protected characteristics. We saw that staff placed significant importance on understanding and knowing each individual to ensure that care and treatment could be provided in an individualised way, for example, use of particular themed pictures on theatre caps to ease anxiety within theatre. A variety of communication tools were used to ensure communication was accessible and meaningful.

Patient diaries were provided to each patient and support and encouragement provided to complete each stage of the patients journey to ensure all staff understood individuals needs and wishes. A bespoke ‘This is me’ care plan had also been developed, for patients with additional needs such as dementia or cognitive impairment. We were provided with completed examples of these documents during our inspection and saw that these had been comprehensively completed and provided a holistic view of a patient’s individual needs.

The Yorkshire Clinic had introduced an innovative Patient Pre-Theatre Visit initiative to proactively support and reassure patients prior to surgery or procedures. This was supported by the Surgical Patient Pathway MDT. Recognising that anxiety before surgery was common and could impact on both emotional and physiological responses, the service identified the value of early, personal engagement with patients. As part of this service, recovery team members meet patients at the start of theatre sessions, offering them an opportunity to ask questions, voice concerns, and become familiar with the team who will care for them post-operatively.

We observed staff to treat people as individuals and engage them in their care during inspection. We saw staff took time to learn about any anxieties or worries that patients were experiencing. We saw proactive completion and discussion of individualised patient diaries. Effective communication and sharing of information to meet individualised needs meant that people were consistently engaged in a meaningful way, and empowered to direct their own care journey.

The provider also undertook patient journey: intraoperative patient journey inspections, reviewing the safety of patients during their surgical procedure. We reviewed the most recent report dated March 2025 and saw the service scored 100%. The process of inspection ensured the service continually monitored the patient experience and were able to make immediate improvements as and when needed.

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.

As part of a strategic objective the service followed the ‘Back to Bedside program – Focus on Fundamental Care’. The aim of the objective was to provide nurses with an approach to reframe their thinking about fundamental care to ensure they meet patients care needs and deliver holistic person-centred care. The areas that we reviewed as part of this approach included the roles and responsibilities of healthcare professionals, intentional rounding, bedside handover, wards rounds and to ensure person centred care during fundamental care, including physical, psychosocial and relational elements of care as part of patient interactions.

Patients we spoke with felt supported to have choice and control over their own care and treatment and to make decisions about their care, treatment and wellbeing.

Staff we spoke with recognised that all individuals should be able to make independent choices in their own right. Staff provided additional information about community support services to people to promote independence, choice and control over decision making about wellbeing. We saw referrals to external partners such as district nurses, continence advice and community healthcare facilities.

We saw staff ensured patients were provided with information regarding all aspects of the Clinic such as access to prayer rooms, restaurants, gym use and family visiting.

Information was provided in way that they could understand. All information either digitally or paper format could be provided in several languages, and we saw the use of translation services.

Patients were able to give feedback at all points of their journey but more formally through patient experience dashboards and surveys.

Processes were in place to ensure people were able to have ‘cool off’ periods before consenting to procedures such as breast surgery or plastic surgery.

We scored the service as 4. The evidence showed an exceptional standard. The service was exceptional in how they 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 recognised and respected the totality of peoples’ needs. We saw that treating people as individuals supported staff to know the patients and to respond to individual needs in a timely way. They consistently took people’s needs into account and found innovative ways to meet them. They consistently took peoples’ needs into account and found innovative ways to meet them. For example, a ‘Quiet Care’ initiative had been developed and introduced, raising staff awareness on noise disturbance. Intentional night-time rounding had been introduced to proactively address needs and reduce call bell use. Staff measured and tracked noise levels sharing real time feedback. Bedside food ordering was introduced.

Fresh water was provided to each room and regularly refreshed. The service had introduced a ‘sip-til-send’ initiative in collaboration with anaesthetists and surgeons whereby hydration was kept at an optimal level. Staff responding to call bells almost immediately. We saw these were positioned on the patient's bedside or chair as appropriate.

People we saw were observed to have their immediate needs met. We heard examples of staff taking time to recognise individuals needs to prevent discomfort. Pain assessments were comprehensively completed and all patients we spoke with, told us they received timely care and treatment. Where appropriate pre agreed pain management plans were put in place. Pain assessments were also subject to audit. We reviewed the most recent audit and saw compliance was 95%. Actions plans supported any areas which required improvement and we saw these actions had been completed and learning embedded at the time of our assessment.

We also reviewed the services patient experience dashboard which provides the most recent patient feedback from all feedback sources. The dashboard showed 96% of patients felt involved in decision making regarding their care. Patients also provided consistently high scores regarding consistent and co-ordinated care which scored 96% and pain and nausea management scored 95%.

Staff we spoke to were dedicated to responding to people’s needs, wishes and comfort. Staff gave examples of how they would respond to individuals needs to ensure dignity and privacy were maintained. Staff were proud to be able to offer the time and support to people that they needed. The patient experience dashboard showed patients scored staff 9.7/10 for kindness of care and compassion and 9.7/10 for confidence in staff.

Patient diaries had been introduced to support staff in understanding peoples needs, views and wishes in order to respond in the moment without causing discomfort. For example, all patients could share on the diary information such as their usual sleep routines, washing and dressing preferences and questions they had thought about for any member of the MDT. This allowed for proactive responses and early recognition of needs.

We saw caring and professional support delivered to patients with reduced mobility needs. Allied healthcare professionals were visible providing additional physiotherapy and mobility advice when required. We saw staff acted quickly to patient requests, to as to minimise any anxiety. We saw the Patient Led Assessments of the Care Environment (PLACE) covered hospital accessibility. We reviewed the latest report which showed the service scored 96% for disability access.

The service had audible lifts, face to face interpreters, multi faith room and hearing loops across every area.

None of the patients we spoke with told us they had to wait for information to be provided. Test results such as blood and swabs were also shared as soon as they were available.

We observed whilst in the reception area, staff attended to an approaching patient in the car park, who was having difficulty mobilising. We saw a caring culture, across all areas we visited.

We scored the service as 4. The evidence showed an exceptional standard. The service always cared about and promoted the wellbeing of their staff and was exceptional at supporting and enabling staff to always deliver person-centred care.

We saw an embedded supportive and empowering culture with the service. It was clear across all areas that we visited that staff felt and showed a sense of pride, which was displayed by everyone we spoke with. Communication between teams flowed with professionalism and openness and staff described colleagues as family.

Staff told us they felt valued by their colleagues within their specific work areas, for example, theatre and wards.

We heard some staff were trained as Mental Health First Aiders and colleagues valued this opportunity to receive support from the mental health first aid team.

Senior leaders recognised the need for wellbeing of staff members. Leaders from each department and team within the hospital met each morning to identify any concerns from the previous day or known challenges that might arise during the day that had potential to impact upon the wellbeing of staff. Staff told us they had been through personal difficulties.

All staff received a health MOT, which offered health advice and support, risk assessment to support any particular health or occupational condition and referral to occupational health support if needed. Staff were also able to use onsite gym facilities and corporate benefits schemes. Staff we spoke with told us they use these benefits and felt valued as a result of it. Physiotherapy staff told us the assess to treat service available to patients was also available to staff to support them to remain at work where possible.

The engagement and wellbeing officer provided regular opportunities for staff to discuss support opportunities if they were struggling. We saw regular staff engagement forum meetings were held and ideas born from them were actioned. Through this support staff were able to provide feedback, raise concerns and suggest ways to improve the service or staff experiences. Staff also had access to a multi faith and contemplation room.

The service encouraged staff engagement in staff surveys that were sent out and the service carried out the ‘one employee, one voice survey annually. We reviewed the most recent survey dated October 2024 and saw the survey had clear key performance indicators for engagement, wellbeing, inclusion and burnout. We saw 92% of staff felt engaged with the service, 97% of staff said patient safety was a priority for the service and 94% of staff said they felt positive about themselves at work.

Leaders of the service proactively used results to shape and focus on areas at local level for future improvements to support staff wellbeing.

Exit interviews were also used to monitor and review themes. This information was used to inform staff wellbeing needs. We reviewed sample exit interview questions and responses and saw the questionnaire was detailed and asked staff for feedback regarding hospital and patient safety, the physical working environment, communications between teams and customer services, raising concerns and returning in the future. We saw unanimous positive feedback across the questionnaires with staff expressing praise in most areas we reviewed.

The service also held customer service excellence awards as a celebration for the standards of high care and involvement in innovation provided by staff. Staff recognition and reward formed part of the People Strategy which was monitored through the providers governance processes and was a standard agenda item.