Sue Ryder - Wheatfields Hospice

Updated 9 October 2025

Sue Ryder - Wheatfields Hospice provides adult inpatient and community specialist palliative care services for people with life limiting conditions where curative treatment is no longer an option and where people are approaching the end of their life. The service provides specialist inpatient care, day therapy services, specialist community services and wellbeing and community support services. The inpatient unit has 16 beds; all are individual rooms with their own bathroom facilities.

We undertook this focussed responsive unannounced assessment on the 16 and 17 July 2025. We assessed specific quality statements within the inpatient ward following concerns received into CQC regarding safe staffing levels and the timely management of pain for patients.

We assessed 3 quality statements: Safe and effective staffing, Medicines optimisation, and Kindness, compassion and dignity.

We spoke with 12 members of staff, 3 people who were inpatients, and 2 leaders. We observed the care provided to people.

Updated 9 October 2025

Thepeople we spoke with were all complimentary of the care and treatment they had received whilst an inpatient at the hospice. They spoke of the kindness the staff had shown. They told us they had received individualised care and treatment and they had been well informed regarding this. They talked about staff going above and beyond to provide the care. They told us they received their medication on time. People generally reported consistent staffing during the week but noted a greater presence of unfamiliar staff at weekends. They spoke positively about the permanent staff and indicated that the quality of care delivered by unfamiliar staff varied. People recognised that the number of agency staff affected the workload of permanent staff, as they had to train and support them.