Archived: Gillian King House

The inspection took place on 17 and 18 February 2016 and was announced.

Gillian King House provides Hospice at home care. The service provides 24 hour access to specialist nurses to deliver planned and responsive care in people’s homes.

Gillian King House is the office base for the Hospice at Home nursing team for South Bucks and Wycombe.

There is a registered manager in place who has been in post for many years.

A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

People received care and support in a personalised way. Their complex medical needs were well managed and staff were trained to meet these needs. Risks were assessed and managed. Staff knew people and understood their complex needs.

Staff were caring and showed people kindness and compassion. Staff were motivated and demonstrated a commitment to providing the best quality care in a compassionate way. People told us they were cared for to a high standard and this included on-going bereavement support for families. Planning for end of life care and post death support was provided to families. Bereaved families told us that the support had been invaluable.

There was a holistic approach to people’s care with the spiritual needs given equal importance. People received a responsive service with needs fully assessed, planned and met.

The service was aware of their responsibilities in regard to the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS). These safeguards aimed to protect people from being inappropriately deprived of their liberty.

The feedback we received from people was excellent. Those people who used the service expressed great satisfaction and spoke highly of the registered manager and staff. For example one person said “I wish there were more funds available for them to employ more excellent staff”.

The safety of people who used the service was taken very seriously and the registered manager and staff were well aware of their responsibilities to protect people. There were systems in place to ensure that risks were identified and addressed.

The registered manager ensured that staff had a full understanding of people’s care needs and had the skills and knowledge to meet them. People felt safe and secure when receiving care.

People had positive relationships with staff and were confident in the service. There was a strong emphasis on key principles of care such as compassion, respect and dignity. People who used the service said they were treated with kindness and said their dignity was always respected.

Changes to people’s needs were quickly identified and amended.

The registered manager was committed to continuous improvement. Feedback from people was used as an opportunity for improvement. The registered manager demonstrated a good understanding of effective quality assurance systems.

There were processes in place to monitor quality and understand the experiences of people who used the service. The registered manager demonstrated strong values and a desire to learn about and implement best practice throughout the service.

Staff were highly motivated and proud of the service. They said they were fully supported by the registered manager and a programme of training and supervision that enabled them to provide high quality service to people.

Professionals gave positive feedback about the service commenting on qualities, skills and knowledge of the staff. Staff were recruited safely and received an induction and specialist training to ensure they had the skills and knowledge to meet people’s needs.

When we talked with healthcare professionals who worked with Rennie Grove Hospice Care they said communication and collaboration between their services was effective. They said the care experience of people was enhanced by the close working relationship they had.

We found there was a high standard of assessment, planning and delivery of care achieved. Systems and records in place were accurate and kept under review to ensure they were up to date. This meant staff were supported by the systems in place to help them provide people with safe, effective and reliable care.

We found there were robust recruitment policies and procedures in place which protected people who received care from the employment of unsuitable people.

We found there were procedures in place for people to provide feedback about the service they received. We saw action was taken to identify where improvements to the quality of service could be made and where possible changes were made. This showed Rennie Grove Hospice Care actively sought comments about the service they provided, listened to those comments and made efforts to learn from them. This meant people who used the service benefitted from an open and quality driven service which focussed on their needs and how they could be best met.

We found from looking at records and speaking with people who used the service that people were being given appropriate information regarding their care and support and were involved in making decisions about how their needs could be met.

The nursing staff said that people's care, treatment and support is planned to meet their individual needs. Care records were detailed, up to date and person-centred. People had individual risk assessment and these were reviewed appropriately. We saw that support is given to people's families and carers and that this included pre-bereavement and post-bereavement support.

The people we spoke with using the service said that they felt safe and had no concerns about the care and support they received.

We saw that there were enough suitably trained and experienced staff to meet the needs of people using the service. The staff were well supported and very positive about the hospice at home service.

The service had various methods that were used to ensure the quality of the care was assessed and monitored. Meetings, satisfaction surveys and management audits were in place and records were available.