Royal Eye Infirmary

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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

This means we looked for evidence that the service involved people and treated them with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.

This is the first inspection for this newly registered service. This key question has been rated Good.This meant people were supported and treated with dignity and respect; and involved as partners in their 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.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. 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.

We observed staff interact with patients respectfully and responsively and with kindness and compassion. Staff supported patients to understand and manage their care, treatment or condition. Staff were able to direct patients to other services where appropriate.

The advanced clinical practitioner in ophthalmology was observed to have a lovely demeanor with patients. They were clear with the patient about what they were going to do and why they were doing it and reassured them throughout. They helped solve problems with some personal situations for the patient, which had been impacted by their eye diagnosis.

We spoke with 5 patients who said staff were kind and they were positive about the interactions they had in the department. Patients attending urgent care told us “Everything’s been perfect” “Kind respectful staff, very kind…and explained what might happen.” “Got sensible answers. Didn’t feel rushed.”

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. 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.

We were provided with examples of how the service adjusted for patients, so they were able to access the service.

The service was able to meet specific communication needs. For example, the visual screens could be done alphabetically, numerically, pictorially or using other languages.

Staff could access interpreters and said they had used this.

Staff received training in equality and diversity to support people as individuals.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. The service promoted people’s independence, so people knew their rights and had choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing.

People were provided with clinical information and guidance but were able to make decisions on how they then managed their care and treatment.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. 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 ensured they understood the condition and symptoms a patient was presenting with. We observed a patient being allowed time to explain to the doctor, despite the doctor having information detailed on the referral. This ensured the patient’s voice was heard and no information was missed.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. The service cared about and promoted the wellbeing of their staff and supported and enabled staff to always deliver person-centred care.

Staff we spoke with enjoyed working in the urgent care department, although described the workload as being busy.

Staff had access to support for their own physical and emotional health needs through the trust occupational health services.

We were given examples of how people were supported to work flexibly and have time off. However, this needed consideration of needs of the service.

Sickness rates for clinical service averaged 8.5% and nursing staff was 5.2%, which was higher than the service’s target of 4%. We were told there was a high level of sickness due to pressures on services across Royal Eye Infirmary.