Good Hope 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

People were treated with kindness, empathy and compassion. Their privacy and dignity were respected as much as possible despite the challenges of the environment. People were able to make their own decisions and be understood. At our last assessment we rated this key question good. At this assessment the rating remained good. This meant people felt well-supported, cared for and treated with dignity and respect.

This service scored 65 (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 treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion, although struggled at times to maintain their privacy. Staff were discreet and responsive when caring for patients. Patients said staff treated them well and with kindness. One patient said they had been "extremely helpful and thoughtful". Another said the care had improved considerably. Patients we spoke with told us the care was good and most felt well informed but there was a long waiting time for next steps. We spoke with a parent in the children's emergency department who told us the staff were lovely and helpful, and they were seen quickly.

Staff were responsive when caring for patients. Staff took time to interact with patients and those close to them in a considerate way.

We spoke with both children and adult patients, and they stated they were happy with the care they had received, and staff were kind and compassionate. We observed staff interactions with patients, and they were personal, respectful, professional and kind.

There was mostly a culture of kindness and respect between colleagues. Most staff we spoke to told us their colleagues were professional, supportive and they respected each other and their different roles. However, we found a few staff felt there were times when compassion to one another was not always shown. One staff member told us they would like to see more care towards each other.

Staff collaborated with other experienced colleagues to provide support for people with mental ill health including children and provided support with emotional wellbeing. Staff understood and respected the individual needs of each patient and showed understanding and a non-judgmental attitude when caring for or discussing patients with mental health needs.

Staff listened and acted upon people's needs including contacting family or friends. Staff locked patient records when they moved away from computer screens to maintain confidentiality.

Due to the way the department was organised, some patients' privacy was not always able to be respected. This was due to the layout of the department, crowding, and the lack of available beds to transfer patients. Patients were regularly being cared for in the corridors, waiting areas and chairs for long periods of time and this lacked privacy at times. However, most patients we spoke with told us they had their privacy and dignity respected. Patients who had been held in temporary areas of the department due to crowding said staff were doing their best to maintain privacy.

The service used staff called navigators within the waiting room to signpost patients to the most appropriate part of the service for them. We sat in the waiting room to observe and found mostly patients were not overheard when speaking to the staff. However, the navigator spoke to patients who were inside the waiting room which meant when crowded, there were times other patients could overhear conversations about why patients had attended the department. Work was scheduled to improve this including 2 private rooms for triage.

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.

People’s needs, views and wishes were listened to and understood. The service sought feedback from patients digitally and collated this information. Where there was positive feedback for individual staff, this was shared with them. Where improvements were needed, actions were created. We saw a “you said, we did” board by Majors A which detailed changes made following feedback. For example, “you said you wanted somewhere you charge your phone whilst waiting”, “we have put in power banks into the waiting room”.

The department completed NHS Friends and Family Test feedback. Between August 2024 and January 2025 there were 2,749 responses. The overall recommendation score was 77.4%. The service also received a weekly report with patient feedback. For February 2025, the positive score was 78.6% with a 11.9% response rate; this was above the national average. The results for the children’s ED were 90.9% positive for February 2025. The results of this were shared with staff weekly. The service identified any learning to make changes in the department. Comments from the survey were mostly positive and included comments such as “I was seen quickly and tests done within a couple of hours. I saw a few doctors and the nurses were extremely kind and helpful”, “The service was very friendly and efficient. I was checked on at regular intervals to see how I was feeling, very professional staff” and “all the staff were excellent, patient and thorough. Long waiting times and very busy but patients were prioritised in an appropriate manner. They coped well at a difficult time.”

The National Urgent and Emergency Care Survey 2024 showed that Good Hope Hospital had 2 question scores which were better than expected when compared to all NHS trusts. This related to feeling able to care for their condition at home after receiving information from staff, as well as receiving support from staff to take medication for any pre-existing medical conditions. All other scores were about the same when compared to all NHS trusts. There were no questions in the worse categories for the hospital.

Staff responded to people’s needs in the moment and acted to minimise any discomfort, concern or distress. We found patient call bells were answered promptly and despite the long waits in the department, patients felt the care was good.

There was a patients’ experience group which met monthly. The bereavement team also attended. The matron had recently presented a story where a 90-year-old patient was in resuscitation and the staff noticed it was their birthday. They organised a cake and all the staff sang “happy birthday”, and the patient was grateful.

There was a hostess 7 days a week to complete breakfast, lunch and tea rounds. We were told the department had recently had all hot meals stopped and patients could only be offered noodles or soup; they had recently stopped sandwiches. This meant patients could be in the department for 2 days without a hot meal. However, patients we spoke to had been offered hot meals and sandwiches.

The service mostly cared about and promoted the wellbeing of their staff and supported and enabled them to always deliver person-centred care. Managers looked after each other and ensured they were supporting their staff as a team. Most staff we spoke to told us their managers really cared about their wellbeing, supported them and they felt valued. One member of staff told us about being specifically supported around a personal issue. Another told us they felt supported and could be themselves at work; they called the team their family. There was a band 7 in the team who was the lead for wellbeing; we saw this was highlighted to staff in the staff room. However, we found some staff in the medical team did not always feel supported. Some felt they were not heard by managers and were not offered support after difficult cases.

Staff had access to personalised support that recognised the diversity of the workforce with proactive and reactive measures. For example, 1 member of staff told us they had additional needs, and the managers and staff had gone above and beyond to ensure their needs were met. Another member of staff told us they had difficult personal circumstances, and they had been supported at work emotionally and adjustments had been made to ensure they were able to work.

People benefitted from staff who had regular opportunities to provide feedback, raise concerns and suggest ways to improve the service. For example, there was a clinical educator in the main emergency department who completed monthly wellbeing drop-in sessions to support staff who needed to talk to someone confidentially. They had recently completed "stay interviews" for staff who might be thinking of leaving. These were anonymised and key themes were given to the matron to identify if they could make any improvements.

While most staff who worked in the service, both medical and nursing, were positive about the work environment, a few members of staff who did not feel their wellbeing was supported. We spoke to managers who told us they also felt there was more to do around staff wellbeing

There was security 24 hours a day, 7 days a week within the department. There was a red and yellow card system for patients who were abusive to staff which stopped them from attending to reduce the abuse staff received.

Staff were nominated for "star of the month" which we were told was well received by the team.

The hospital completed a staff survey in 2023 with mixed results including low morale, work pressures, lack of team working and feeling valued, negative experiences at work, and burnout. They had repeated this in 2024, but the results were not available at the time of the assessment. Since the 2023 results there had been new leadership within the hospital and in the emergency department and staff mostly reported positive improvements.