Western Medical Services Ltd

On this page

• Overview
• Shared direction and culture
• Capable, compassionate and inclusive leaders
• Freedom to speak up
• Workforce equality, diversity and inclusion
• Governance, management and sustainability
• Partnerships and communities
• Learning, improvement and innovation

This is the first assessment for this service. This key question has been rated good. This meant the service was consistently managed and well-led. Leaders and the culture they created promoted high-quality, person-centred care.

The service had a positive culture. Staff were able to share concerns and had confidence in leaders to take action. There were systems and processes to govern the quality and safety of the service. The service worked with others to improve care provision.

This service scored 75 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

The service had a shared vision, strategy and culture. This was based on transparency, equity, equality and human rights, diversity and inclusion, engagement, and understanding challenges and the needs of people and their communities.

Leaders involved staff to develop the direction of the service. The vision was focused on providing high quality care to improve people’s lives. Staff understood how to use processes and procedures to deliver the service’s vision. Staff told us leaders actively asked for feedback on how to make improvements in the service.

The service developed values that all leaders and staff were required to follow. Leaders and staff told us values were embedded in training and were built into appraisals. Each job role had clear roles and responsibilities.

During the assessment, staff told us they could feedback to leaders on how to make improvements. Following feedback from staff, leaders included suicide awareness into mandatory training.

The service had leaders who understood the context in which they delivered care and treatment. Leaders embodied the culture and values of their workforce and organisation. Leaders had the skills, knowledge, experience and credibility to lead effectively. They did so with integrity, openness and honesty.

Leaders were experienced healthcare professionals. They valued their workforce and understood challenges that staff faced when performing their duties. During the assessment staff told us they had confidence in leaders to do the right thing.

Leaders adjusted working patterns, where possible, to support staff who were experiencing personal challenges. Staff gave us examples of how leaders had made adjustments in their work pattern to support them. Staff told us they could raise any concerns to the management team and believed these would be taken seriously.

Leaders recognised the importance of developing staff skills by offering development opportunities. Each area of the service had career development that gave staff a clear pathway from entry level to leadership. Members of staff had been able to develop on these pathways.

At the time of our assessment the service did not have a registered manager. However, there was an application in progress and the service had robust plans to manage the quality and safety of the service.

During the assessment, staff told us leaders were visible across the service.

The service fostered a positive culture where people felt they could speak up and their voice would be heard.

There was a named freedom to speak up guardian staff could go to for support. The service had a clear whistleblowing process. There was a process where staff could share concerns anonymously. Staff told us the importance of raising concerns to protect people.

Leaders had committed to protecting staff at work. They created policies to support the protection of staff and committed to promoting sexual safety at work.

Leaders told us they had an open-door policy, and staff could approach them whenever they had any issues or concerns. Staff confirmed this and told us they felt able to raise concerns and felt leaders would take appropriate actions.

The service’s staff survey results showed all staff knew how to report concerns of harassment and discrimination.

The service valued diversity in their workforce. They work towards an inclusive and fair culture by improving equality and equity for people who work for them.

Staff had training in equality and diversity. Staff understood the need to give everyone the same rights and opportunities and to value and respect people's differences. Recruitment practices were inclusive.

The service employed staff on fixed and flexible contracts. Where possible leaders considered personal circumstances when planning rotas. Staff told us they were able to swap shifts with colleagues if needed.

The service had clear responsibilities, roles, systems of accountability and good governance. They used these to manage and deliver good quality, sustainable care, treatment and support. They act on the best information about risk, performance and outcomes, and share this securely with others when appropriate.

Leaders used information to monitor service performance. Each area of the service had individual key performance indicators with targets to benchmark performance. Records showed the service was meeting their internal targets.

Leaders monitored themes and trends in data to make improvements. They actively performed data validation to ensure data used was accurate and reliable. This included investing in an electronic monitoring system.

The service carried out clinical audits to monitor quality and safety. Records showed audits were being completed to schedule. Leaders monitored concerns being raised in the wider healthcare sector and implemented new audits to manage risks.

The service had a process to identify and manage risks. Risks were formally rated and reviewed regularly, and leaders monitored actions to manage those risks. Leaders maintained a service improvement register to capture ideas raised both formally or informally and record progress made to improve the service.

There were plans to continue care provision should there be an event causing disruption to the service. The service had a business continuity plan that described actions staff would take in response to an incident.

The leadership team held regular meetings to review all aspects of service performance. Records showed that actions were agreed, and a named person was responsible to ensure actions were completed. Information was shared with staff through meetings, emails and newsletters.

The service had an environmental sustainability strategy. This included short-term, medium-term and long-term plans to provide environmentally friendly healthcare.

The service understood their duty to collaborate and work in partnership, so services work seamlessly for people. They share information and learning with partners and collaborate for improvement.

The service had regular engagement with relevant healthcare providers. Leaders said it was important to develop positive relationships and share learning in provision of care.

The service reached out to patients and local people to gain their views on the service and seek opportunities to improve.

The service worked with other healthcare providers in major incident planning. Leaders received training in major incident response.

The service focused on continuous learning, innovation and improvement across the organisation. They actively contribute to safe, effective practice and research.

The service was focussed on improving systems and processes. Leaders proactively considered future risks associated with business growth and implemented changes ahead of time. Leaders reviewed performance of contracted services and invested in equipment if these functions could be performed better by the service itself. Leaders invested in learning when identifying new workstreams to understand if the service could expand.

Leadership was developing an inhouse electronic application to bring together all information used by the service into one place. They said this would make information fast and easier to access.