Birmingham Heartlands 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 people were always treated with kindness, empathy and compassion. People’s privacy and dignity was respected; they understood they and their experience of how they were treated and supported mattered. We found evidence that every effort was made to take people’s wishes into account and respect their choices, to achieve the best possible outcomes for them.

Children and young people were treated with kindness, compassion and their privacy and dignity was respected. Staff understood the experience of how children and young people were treated and supported mattered. Children were treated as individuals and given choice and control where possible.

This is the first assessment for this service since the trust was formed in 2018. Caring is rated as good. This meant people always felt well-supported, cared for and or treated with dignity and respect.

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

Staff were kind and caring. When speaking to children, young people, and family members, they all told us staff were kind and caring. We saw staff treat babies, children, and young people with compassion, dignity and respect. Staff spoke compassionately about caring for their patients and they wanted to provide the best care and treatment for them.

Staff recognised the need to treat children and young people with dignity and making sure they were comfortable with who the staff were. When nurses or doctors needed to complete observations or care or treatment, curtains were pulled around the bed or side room doors were closed. We saw staff explaining to children and young people or their families and carers who they were and what they were proposing for the care and treatment.

Staff showed compassion for how families would be feeling. Neonatal staff showed compassion and kindness when speaking to parents about their babies who were unwell. Staff offered comfort and support and explaining the next steps for care and treatment.

When a child reached a milestone in their care, such as no longer needing breathing support, staff and parents celebrated this.

The service treated children and young people as individuals and worked to provide care, support and treatment that met their needs and preferences. Staff took account of children's strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics. The service used `passports' and different forms of communication aids with children and young people to enable them to express their wants, needs and wishes. However, there was an inconsistent approach to completion of these passports and staff were not always able to locate these on the electronic patient record. The care plans we did review included helpful levels of detail about how to care for the child or young person.

Records identified when multidisciplinary meetings had taken place with support from the local mental health service and social worker to meet a child's individual health and care needs.

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

Children, young people, and families we spoke with told us they were involved in care decisions. This included difficult conversations relating to care and treatment. Staff took time to provide information. Children, young people, and families told us they felt they were able to ask nurses and doctors questions regarding their care and treatment, and staff took time to answer any questions they had.

The service listened to and understood people’s needs, views and wishes. Staff responded to people’s needs promptly and acted to minimise any discomfort, concern, or distress. We saw children and young people had access to the call bells and staff answered them in a timely manner.

Staff had a good understanding of the children and young people’s needs. There was good communication between departments. A handover took place between staff before the child or young person arrived on the ward.

The service used various communication aids for children and young people who were non-verbal. This would be identified within their ‘passport’ which described their wants, needs and preferences. Passports were used to ensure the children and young people’s needs were being met, but also to ensure there was consistency from the staff team when providing care and treatment.

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

Staff felt supported in their wellbeing. We met with 20 members of staff of all levels who all felt well supported by the team and managers. However, they did say staff shortages and working cross-site had an impact at times on staff morale. Staff told us the wellbeing leads were visible and approachable for support where needed. Staff felt comfortable to raise concerns to their direct manager.

There was support for wellbeing and health. This included a hospital wellbeing hub for all staff to get individual support. The service encouraged staff to also obtain support from an independent organisation who could provide staff with 9 months of support and strategies to help them in relation to stress, anxiety or low mood.

The risk governance bulletin contained a section thanking staff for their hard work and acknowledging this had been a challenging time for the neonatal team. The newsletter suggested ways staff could look after each other and themselves such as checking in to see how their colleagues were or making sure they had a break. The newsletter also acknowledged individual staff members contributions over the month and celebrated successes.