St Luke's Hospital

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

We looked for evidence that the service 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 remained good.

This meant people were supported and treated with dignity and respect; and involved as partners in their care.

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 always treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity. Staff treated colleagues from other organisations with kindness and respect.

Staff attitudes and behaviours when interacting with patients showed that they were consistently discreet, respectful and responsive. People were provided with help when they needed it.

Patients told us that staff listened to them and took time to understand their needs.

Some patients experienced lengthy appointment times due to the nature of the clinic they were attending. We saw staff respond appropriately to those patients ensuring that they were comfortable and aware of the next steps.

Staff understood the individual needs of patients, for example, all staff knew when clinics were running where patients may receive bad news. Staff were mindful that all individuals may respond differently and were careful to respect privacy and dignity.

Staff we spoke with felt able to advocate on behalf of patients where they felt concerns needed to be raised.

Staff maintained confidentiality. However, it was recognised that not all reception desk areas supported private conversations due to the open nature of the areas. Staff told us they would contact clinicians to speak to people in a private area should the need arise in addition to planned appointments. The main adult outpatient area had a line on the floor designed to stop people progressing forward until called, however, we heard this was not always effective.

Chaperones were available in each area should people require a chaperone. There was information available regarding requesting a chaperone and teams would ensure suitable requirements were met to meet individuals’ needs. People were also able to bring family members for support.

People could be directed to appropriate areas of the hospital when required, for example there was a ‘changing places’ wet room facility available. These facilities allowed for extra space for mobility and assistance. This had enabled a patient with a leaking stoma site to shower and change with dignity in a private space.

Staff were aware that parking was often difficult for people attending appointments and would de-escalate any worries about getting parking tickets at the start of appointment times.

The service treated people as individuals and made sure people’s care, support and treatment met people’s needs and preferences. They took account of people’s strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics.

The service made adjustments for patients for example, by ensuring people’s access to equipment required for health checks. We observed individualised conversations regarding people’s preference over using standing or sitting scales for weights.

People told us that they had been provided with information about their health condition and treatment. Information had been provided in a way that people could understand. We heard examples of individual views taken into account when considering treatment options.

Staff took into account the needs of those with learning disabilities, dementia and autistic people when considering how to communicate with people.

People told us clear explanations were given to children in a way that minimised distress. Families were kept fully involved in the care and were able to ask questions.

Information was available in languages spoken by patients. The trust used a symbol to identify information on websites that could be translated into any language.

Managers ensured that staff and patients had easy access to interpreters and/or signers.

There was a place of worship available on the hospital site for peoples use. This allowed for multi-faith use. There was an option for individual prayer requests to be placed. We saw these were actioned.

The service promoted people’s independence, so people knew their rights and had choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing.

People we spoke to told us they had been fully involved in their care and treatment. They had been listened to and had information clarified when needed.

People were able to attend appointments with those whom they chose to do so. We heard an example of a patient who attended regularly with a guide dog for support. Staff told us they would also support people using braille.

We saw guidance had been created to support staff in understanding what reasonable adjustments might be helpful for children with additional needs. This guidance focused on understanding each child as an individual and preparing ahead of the appointment to ensure that each child was supported to have a voice and feel in control.

The service 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 were on hand to respond to people’s needs on entering the building. We saw volunteers were present and easy to approach to support with signposting around the hospital. The volunteers anticipated people’s needs and were able to give verbal directions or take people along to departments as required.

We observed staff in all areas check with people if they had been seen and if they knew who they were seeing. Staff clarified any uncertainties for people in a timely manner.

Staff were very familiar with the type of clinics that were held on each day. They used their knowledge of the clinics to anticipate need. For example, we saw one clinic where people attended and saw a range of multidisciplinary team members. People could be in the department for up to three hours. We saw staff ensuring that people were comfortable and kept aware of who they would see next.

We saw staff recognised when people needed additional time to ensure people fully understood their health condition. Staff gave this time to people as needed.

Staff told us how they tried to meet peoples needs as much as possible. For example, television volumes or lighting would be adjusted. There was a quiet room in the adult outpatient department that staff were all aware of and identified as a space that could be used if someone needed a calmer waiting area. Staff would also go to that room to conduct appointments if needed to avoid people moving through the department if distressed or anxious.

There was a separate room equipped with bariatric facilities to support meeting the needs of all people.

Staff responding to changing risks, for example, people were supported if they felt faint during appointments.

The service cared about and promoted the wellbeing of their staff and supported and enabled staff to always deliver person-centred care.

Most staff we spoke to told us they felt respected, supported and valued by their immediate leadership teams. For example, within paediatric outpatients there were regular weekly check-ins with staff. A tool using faces depicting emotions was used to determine how staff were feeling and to allow for action to be taken when concerns were identified.

We observed staff were able to take breaks and manage their workload.

Staff felt they supported each other well when people needed adjustments to manage their own physical and emotional health needs. However, we heard this sometimes impacted on other staff as this was not always felt to be equitable. Leaders had recognised this and were taking action to ensure an equitable approach to flexible working.

We heard that staff often got re-deployed to outpatient roles from other teams when they had longer term health conditions that impacted on, for example, ability to work shifts on wards. Such moves supported working arrangements around health conditions. This meant there was often high levels of sickness. For example, sickness absence rates in adult outpatients were consistently approximately 13% for the past year. We heard that steps were being taken to ensure consistent management of this but human resource (HR) support was not always available. Staff were able to access occupational health support.

Staff also had access to an employee assist programme, Spiritual, Pastoral and Religious Care (SPaRC) and were advised of wider community support services, for example, mental health crisis needs. Information was readily available on the trusts intranet.

We reviewed staff turnover rates and saw that these were low for the outpatient areas.

Staff told us and we saw that safety for staff was not always a priority within the St Luke's hospital site. There was only one security guard available for the site. There were multiple buildings on the site that were accessible by the public. We heard that members of the public on occasions had visited the hospital as a place of warmth and safety, for example, homeless people had attended and seated themselves in the main outpatient waiting area. Staff were vulnerable towards the end of the clinics if clinics were running late and other staff had left for the day. Outpatient leaders were aware of this and supported staff to manage clinics so that they ran to time. An arrangement had also been made with the local homeless team to support homeless people to more appropriate settings.

Staff we spoke with told us they felt proud about working for their team.

Staff successes within the service were recognised. For example, staff were recognised for working to consistently ensure the experience of people using the services were central to the work they did.

Staff appraisals included conversations about career development and how it could be supported.