St Luke's Hospital

On this page

• Overview
• Assessing needs
• Delivering evidence-based care and treatment
• How staff, teams and services work together
• Supporting people to live healthier lives
• Monitoring and improving outcomes
• Consent to care and treatment

We looked for evidence that people’s care, treatment and support achieved good outcomes and promoted a good quality of life, based on best available evidence.

At our last assessment we did not rate this key question.

This key question has been rated good.

This meant people’s outcomes were consistently good, and people’s feedback confirmed this.

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 made sure people’s care and treatment was effective by assessing and reviewing their health, care, wellbeing and communication needs with them.

Healthcare assistant staff carried out height and weight checks immediately after patients had checked in. Comprehensive health assessments were carried out by clinicians from relevant clinical service units (CSU’s). A range of assessment tools were used. For example, picture cards were used in paediatrics. Translation options were also available to communicate in different languages and dialects to ensure needs were comprehensively assessed.

Care plans were devised to meet assessed needs. Needs were routinely assessed at each appointment. People were also empowered to recognise and identify their own changing needs. Care plans were developed to support people to seek help when they needed it.

We reviewed care documents and saw these were clear and concise.

The service planned and delivered people’s care and treatment with them, including what was important and mattered to them. They did this in line with legislation and current evidence-based good practice and standards.

The trust had a system in place to ensure patients could access information that was evidenced based and informative.

Staff participated in clinical audit and quality improvement projects. For example, we saw the physiotherapy team had reviewed waiting lists, considered evidence-based practices and made changes to their ways of working based on the review to improve waiting times. This supported ‘Getting it right first time recommendations’ (GIRFT).

The teams had access to a full range of specialists working to National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidance to meet people’s needs. However, therapy teams recognised that there was not always enough staff to meet demand and this risked leaving gaps in service provision. For example, there was an awareness that not enough was being done to support respiratory patients early enough. The team were proactive in recognising need and identifying actions required to achieve NICE guidance. Business cases would be put forward to senior leaders where appropriate. We did not see evidence of business cases that had been approved.

The service worked well across teams and services to support people. They made sure people only needed to tell their story once by sharing their assessment of needs when people moved between different services.

We saw evidence of multidisciplinary working across a range of outpatient services offered. Care was co-ordinated effectively and staff had access to the information they needed to assess, plan and treat individuals.

In paediatrics we were told about effective multi-disciplinary clinics for children with spina bifida. This allowed for joined up plans of care for patients.

Adult outpatients facilitated, for example, co-ordinated one stop early rheumatology assessment clinics. People were able to move around each health professional in turn allowing appointments with numerous professionals including medical, nursing and physiotherapy in one visit. Information was shared appropriately between each professional ensuring care was joined up.

We saw healthcare assistant staff working well to ensure all people knew who they were due to see next and how long they would need to wait. People were supported to locate a different area in the clinic, for example, the phlebotomy clinic if bloods needed to be taken. Healthcare assistant staff looked out for people returning to ensure they returned to the right place for the next part of their appointment.

The outpatient staff had effective working relationships with the specialist teams holding clinics within the outpatient areas. The outpatient staff were knowledgeable about the clinics that were held each day and knew what set up would be required for each different clinic type.

The service supported people to manage their health and wellbeing to maximise their independence, choice and control. The service supported people to live healthier lives and where possible, reduced their future needs for care and support.

The trust promoted the ‘Making Every Contact Count’ (MECC) approach. This approach encouraged staff to engage patients in discussion about wider health and wellbeing needs, for example, smoking, exercise or mental wellbeing.

Information was provided for people to support healthier lifestyles. For example, we saw mental health awareness information and adverts for services in the community to support men’s health.

Quick Response (QR) codes were available to scan for health advice. These were placed on walls in corridors. Staff recognised that people might not always want to scan a QR code from a corridor wall for confidentiality purposes where others could see the QR codes being scanned. We did not see alternatives.

We saw codes for managing blood pressure that could be scanned in alternative languages.

The service routinely monitored people’s care and treatment to continuously improve it. They ensured that outcomes were positive and consistent, and that they met both clinical expectations and the expectations of people themselves.

Audits were routinely carried out to monitor compliance to good practice. We saw that actions were identified through audits and follow up actions taken demonstrating improvement at re-audit points.

Each of the clinical service units providing outpatient services within the department maintained responsibility for their own specific clinical audits and benchmarking.

The patient booking team used effective systems to monitor attendance and constantly look for improvements in booking processes and utilisation of clinic slots.

The service told people about their rights around consent and respected these when delivering person-centred care and treatment.

Staff took all practical steps to enable patients to make their own decisions. Consent was sought before procedures were carried out. Communication aids were used appropriately to support where there might have been barriers to understanding.

Each individual clinical service unit took responsibility for ensuring capacity was assessed where appropriate.