Croydon University Hospital

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• Overview
• Kindness, compassion and dignity
• Treating people as individuals
• Independence, choice and control
• Responding to people’s immediate needs
• Workforce wellbeing and enablement

At our last assessment we rated this key question requires improvement. At this assessment the rating has improved to good.

We looked for evidence that the service involved people and treated them with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect. We assessed three quality statements.

Patients told us that staff were caring, kind and respected their wishes. Patients received compassionate care and their privacy and dignity were maintained. We saw positive interactions with patients as well as staff.

Some patients said it was noisy at nights on the ward but staff were responsive to their needs. However, there were times when patients required diagnostic tests and they were often delayed or cancelled and we were told this was not always communicated well.

Staff felt valued and supported by leaders to enable them to deliver person centred care.

We have not awarded this service a score for Caring.

Find out about when we will not publish a key question score and what we look at when we assess Caring.

The service treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion.

Medical services were delivered by caring and compassionate staff. We observed staff treating patients with dignity and respect especially when providing personal care. We observed patients in distress were treated with kindness, empathy and compassion and understanding when facilitating discharge plans. We saw positive transitions and interactions with patients and staff.

Staff were always available for questions, supporting patients with a kind empathic bedside manner.

Patients and their relatives told us that although there had been delays in being transferred to the wards, staff in the emergency department had been caring and kind and this was continued on the wards. Some told us that the care was 'excellent'

Some patients told us that it can be noisy at night on the wards as well as poor communication around discharge plans, though all spoke positive about the nursing care they received and were responsive to their needs.

In 2023/2024, the trust launched a new system for collecting Friends and Family Test feedback. The new system used QR codes and text messages to collect feedback . There had been a decrease in the feedback which we were told was attributed to the system changes but there had been a steady improvement in the amount of feedback received. Between April 2023 and March 2024 the majority of inpatient services had a positive response. However, some patients reported less positively about pain control. The service was responding by looking into more detail the comments and in endoscopy services the nurses to discuss with patients expectations of the procedure and how to support them post procedure.

Privacy screens and curtains were available to help ensure privacy and dignity was maintained when required. We observed these being used during the assessment.

There was a discharge lounge open in the day and accepted referrals for patients needing patient transport services or waiting for a taxi or family member to take them home. If patients required, drinks, snacks or a sandwich to eat then these would be facilitated by the healthcare assistant.

Bereavement services were also available to provide help and guidance to families following the death of a relative. This included advise on next steps. Families were also provided with a `with sympathies' booklet which provided information from registering a death to finding a funeral director.

There were chaplaincy services available to support the pastoral, spiritual and religious needs of patients, family, friends, staff and volunteers. They provided this care to people of all faiths and beliefs. They were available Monday to Friday 9 am to 5 pm but could be contacted outside of these hours via the on call chaplain.

We did not look at Treating people as individuals during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Caring.

We did not look at Independence, choice and control during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Caring.

Whilst the service did listen to and understand patients' needs, views and wishes, the service was not always able to respond to patients' needs to minimise any additional stress in their care pathway.

Patients we spoke with told us that communication regarding delays to procedures or tests was not always communicated well and there were times when patients had been prepared to have the tests but then found out these had been delayed or cancelled.

Staff expressed that transport was one of the main challenges they face when discharging patents, the delay in transport allocation, has led to people having to stay in the hospital longer that needed.

Patients told us that they had access to drinks and food when they wanted it and that staff responded to their call bells when they required help. There was a system where staff were alerted regularly to ensure that patients had drinks available.

We spoke with a patient who was a young adult who had been on the ward for 2 days and was waiting for diagnostic tests before discharge. They told us that the care was good and they got the food and drink they liked. Staff had referred the patient to the learning disability specialist nurse to help meet their needs but were still waiting input from this service at the time of the assessment. Relatives told us that there were open visiting times and they could stay with their family member as long as they wanted to.

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

A structured coaching programme was in the process of being implemented to train managers and senior staff in early intervention strategies; an initiative designed to help managers identify and support employees experiencing stress, workload pressures, or personal challenges before these issues escalate.

Compliments and positive feedback from patients and carers were shared with staff through a number of means including at board rounds, team meetings and also displayed on staff notice boards within the department or ward.

Mental health support is crucial as it helps to reduce stress offering staff the opportunity to share their concerns in a confidential environment. The Trust had 59 trained Mental Health first aiders who were staff volunteers acting as a point of contact offering reassurance to colleagues who may experiencing a mental health issue or emotional distress.

Staff took part in the annual staff survey. The results for 2024 had been shared with senior staff to prepare action plans and share with the rest of the staff. Across elderly care, staff felt able to make suggestions to improve the work of the team and involved in deciding changes that affect work, as well as receiving respect they deserve from colleagues at work. However, across all services feedback given on changes made following incidents was lower than the previous year.

Staff were offered seasonal influenza vaccinations. The uptake of vaccinations rate for the year 2023 to 2024 was 50% with 99% of staff being offered the vaccine. This compared to an average national figure of 44.5%. The average London figure of frontline staff receiving the vaccine was 38.3%.

There was a high sickness absence rates across the trust as a whole against the trust target. January 2025 sickness level was reported as 5.42% which was the highest locally but in line with the national average of 5.4%.

There was a Trust Wellbeing Strategy 2024-27 which formed part of the People and Culture plan and linked to the five year Clinical Strategy. It focused on the key theme of supporting the workforce and set out the vision, priorities and milestones for the next three years.

TRiM (Trauma Response Incident Management) was available to support staff and teams who had experienced a traumatic incident. There were 17 TRiM practitioners across the organisation. The process was supported by both clinical and non clinical teams to support staff during challenging times.

Staff we spoke with knew of the processes that were available to support them.