Sue Ryder - Wheatfields Hospice

Ratings

• Overall

  Inadequate

• Safe

  Inadequate

• Effective

  Inadequate

• Caring

  Requires improvement

• Responsive

  Good

• Well-led

  Inadequate

Our view of the service

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 date of assessment. We carried out this assessment on 4 to 6 March, 13 March, and 27 May 2025. All visits were unannounced, except for the visit on 13 March. This follow-up visit was scheduled in response to concerns identified during the initial unannounced assessment on 4 to 6 March, which indicated that further on-site activity was required.
• We conducted this assessment due to receiving information of concern. We assessed the quality statements from the safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led key questions where we found concerns.
• Following this assessment, we issued the provider with a Section 64 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 requirement to provide the Care Quality Commission (CQC) with specified information and documentation.
• We issued a further Section 64 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 requirement to provide the Care Quality Commission (CQC) with specified information and documentation.
• We continued to receive further information of concerns related to unsafe staffing and concerns that patients were not receiving fundamental standards of care. We carried out a further assessment of the service on 27 May 2025.
• Following the assessment, we issued the service with a Section 29 warning notice of the Health and Social Care Act 2008.
• Whilst we were made aware that the provider had taken some actions at national level in 2024 regarding concerns they had identified, these had not been effective in Wheatfields Hospice when we assessed in 2025.
• The service did not have effective systems in place to ensure that there is safe staffing on the inpatient unit (IPU).
• The service did not have effective systems and processes to ensure that agency staff are appropriately inducted and granted access to internal systems.
• The service did not have effective systems and processes to ensure good governance in medication management.

People's experience of this service