Blackpool Victoria Hospital

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• 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

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

We looked for evidence that people and communities had the best possible outcomes because their needs were assessed and met. We checked that people’s care, support and treatment reflected these needs and any protected equality characteristics, ensuring people were at the centre of their care. We also looked for evidence that leaders instilled a culture of improvement, where understanding current outcomes and exploring best practice was part of their everyday work.

We have not awarded this service a score for Effective.

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

The evidence showed a good standard. The service made sure people’s care and treatment was effective by assessing and reviewing their health, care, wellbeing, and communication needs with them.

We reviewed 10 patient care records; 2 patient care records were of patients with a learning disability.

Patients and some family members told us they had been fully involved in the care and treatment and were aware of next steps, staff were attentive and provided quality care.

Care plans observed met the needs of patients identified during assessment, they were personalised, holistic and updated regularly with evidence of repeat assessments which were a mix of handwritten entries or typed note entries.

The care plans evidenced joint working with other departments and specialist services.

Communication passports were also evident in the 2 patient care records for people with a learning disability.

Staff used recognised tools to assess pain for patients and those who were unable to communicate verbally.

The evidence showed a good standard. 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.

Staff participated in service clinical audit, benchmarking and quality improvement initiatives. The findings were evidenced monthly on the large whiteboards upon entry to the wards. Staff also lead on improvement programs to improve outcomes for patients such as reduction in falls, repositioning in bed, pressure ulcer reduction, increase in fluid intake, healthy eating, information boards and cessation of smoking information. A sample of patient pathways and guidelines were reviewed during this assessment, including stroke and sepsis; these were found to be in line with national guidance.

Specialties including cardiology, respiratory and rheumatology utilised GIRFT (Getting it right first time) to improve the treatment and care of patients through in-depth reviews of services.

Most of the policies we reviewed were comprehensive, in date and in line with national guidance. Staff explained that any changes to practice or policies were discussed in team huddles and they were able to provide examples of guidance/practices being updated. The wards held regular team meetings attended by leaders where quality and performance were discussed. We saw from minutes of these meetings that updates to clinical practice and how the service planned to respond and implement these changes could be discussed.

The evidence showed a good standard. 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.

Staff held regular and effective multidisciplinary meetings including senior decision makers. We observed a ward round meeting that included senior ward staff, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, specialist nurses, occupational therapists, transfer-of-care staff, and integrated discharge staff.

Staff discussed each patient’s individual needs, whether they were medically optimised, and the ongoing care required. They considered likely future care needs, relevant background, patient history, family support networks, personal needs, expected length of stay, allergies, and safeguarding concerns and advocated for enhanced care on discharge where required.

Staff shared patient information effectively at handover meetings within the team, such as shift-to-shift handovers which also included safety huddles. Teams maintained effective working relationships and good handovers with other relevant teams in the organisation, including care coordinators, discharge, and specialist teams.

We observed bed-side handovers on one ward, which had been implemented to involve patients in the handover. However, on one occasion we observed information being handed over in the centre of a ward, which meant all patients could hear private information relating to other patients. Handover discussions should be confidential to maintain privacy and dignity.

The evidence showed a good standard. 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.

Patients we spoke with felt staff supported them to manage their own health, care and wellbeing needs.

Staff assessed each patient’s health when admitted and provided support for any individual needs to help them live a healthier lifestyle. For example, staff supported people to engage with smoking‑cessation services, alcohol and drug recovery programmes, and mental health support services The service had relevant information promoting healthy lifestyles and support on the wards and units. Information leaflets were readily available for patients. However, some leaflets were passed their review dates.

The evidence showed a need for improvement. The service was in the process of improvement work, strengthening their oversight and divisional learning to routinely monitored people’s care and treatment to continuously improve it.

The trust was progressing from previous work on Sentinel Stroke National Audit Programme (SSNAP) and was extending this approach for benchmarking and where work is being carried out to compare the trust results against similar sized services. The trust was embarking on extending their approach to other audits, within the national audit program with a focus on continued improvements to include the requirement to strengthened oversight and divisional learning; revised job description of audit lead roles and clearly documented action plans that include consideration of benchmarking improvement alongside improved audit compliance.

Staff used recognised tools to improve the detection and response to clinical deterioration in patients as a key element of patient safety and improving patient outcomes.

The trust had a clinical audit audit program as well as the fundamentals of care programme in place that included the requirement for action plans.

The trust provided the recent Sentinel Stroke National Audit Programme (SSNAP) performance data which showed the trust to be the best performing in the region, with an overall SSNAP score of 66% (level C).

The trust also completed a year-long programme undertaking an NHS Elect run programme named TASC (Thrombolysis in Acute Stroke Collaborative) which had demonstrated a marked improvement in thrombolysis rates along with other benefits patient stroke pathway which had been reflected in their SSNAP scores. Showing an increase in thrombolysis rate of 8% between 2020-2024 to 26% in their Q1 result in 2025.

The evidence showed a good standard. 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. For patients who might have impaired mental capacity, staff assessed and recorded capacity to consent appropriately. When patients lacked capacity, staff made decisions in their best interests, recognising the importance of the person’s wishes, feelings, culture and history.

They did this on a decision-specific basis for all decisions and with involvement of relatives which was evidenced in patient records.

The trust Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) latest commissioned report October 2025 stated there was a good system of internal control designed to meet the system objectives, and that controls were generally being applied consistently with recommendations for the trust to action.

Trust wide compliance for patient consent was audited in 2024 and 2025 noting that there were improvements and at the last audit the compliance audit data was around 84% with recommendations for further compliance and reoccurring annual auditing.

For patients at the end of life, staff started discussions with the patient and their family as early as possible about their preferred place of death. The trust followed the SWAN (Signs Words Actions and Needs) model, a values-based framework for end-of-life and bereavement care that focused on dignity and personalised care through Signs, Words, Actions, and Needs.