Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

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

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

At our last assessment we rated this key question good. At this assessment the rating has remained as good.

Staff mostly treated patients with compassion and kindness. They respected patients’ privacy and dignity. They understood the individual needs of patients and supported patients to understand and manage their care, treatment or condition. Staff worked to address specific risks to patients, and where gaps in care where identified they worked to address these. Staff told us that they felt supported and enjoyed working in the service. However, issues with communication were raised to the inspection, and staff did not always engage with patients as individuals or engage them directly in conversation.

This service scored 75 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

We scored the service as 2. The service did not always consider the individual needs of the patient, and did not always treat people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity. Staff treated colleagues from other organisations with kindness and respect.

We observed mixed staff attitudes and behaviours when interacting with patients. Staff were sometimes observed talking about patients in front of individuals and not engaging them in conversations. The individual needs of the patients were not always supported, for example, at mealtime at Westwood Park some individuals appeared to need more one to one support than staff provided, and more time to ensure they had completed their meals.

However, patients were positive about how they were treated by staff, and they told us that they were treated kindly and compassionately. Staff were observed offering emotional support to patients when they needed it. Staff took their time to discuss the patient’s concerns and address their anxieties.

Staff said they could raise concerns about disrespectful, discriminatory or abusive behaviour or attitudes towards patients without fear of the consequences.

Staff maintained the confidentiality of information about patients.

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.

The service was accessible for disabled patients, and there was good access to equipment to support patients mobilising around the ward and encouraging patients to be mobile where possible.

Information was available to staff in different languages; at Westbourne Green these were easily accessible to visitors as part of the unit’s reception area. Staff told us that they could access translation services for patients when required.

Patients had a choice of food to meet the dietary requirements, catering staff understood their individual dietary requirements, and were given a daily handover to ensure patients could choose appropriately.

We scored the service as 2. The evidence showed some shortfalls. The service did not always promote people’s independence, so people did not always know their rights and have choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing.

The purpose of the unit was to promote people’s independence people understood why they’re there and people could make decisions about their care.

Activities were provided on the ward; however, staff did not support patients to decide if they did or did not want to take part. During the inspection we observed staff putting out activities such as dominoes, but they did not engage with patients to ask if they wanted to play or support them in the activity, and patients in turn did not engage with the activity.

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.

At both sites there was a drive from staff to address specific risk issues such as falls and pressure sores. At Westwood Park, they had been awarded a certificate for 6 months without the need for pressure care, and the risk assessment on admission focused on skin integrity, as well as falls and nutritional risk. Pressure-sore care was promoted widely with staff.

Similarly, there was a drive to reduce falls, signs around both wards encouraged patients to press the call buzzer for support when needed, and we observed that patients with falls risks had wrist bands. At Westbourne Green they also had bay tagging in place in the rooms so that there was always a member of staff to support patients mobilising. Bay tagging was when a staff member was assigned to a 4-bed bay to observe patients and provide support when required.

Also at Westbourne Green, a gap in the therapies provided had been identified, meaning on Thursdays there was no therapies input for patients. To address this the ward manager had put in place an exercise class for all patients who wished to be involved. Staff led patients in basic exercises that were appropriate to the range of abilities of the patients. Staff were encouraging and there was a good level of engagement from patients joining the session.

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 told us they felt respected, supported and valued. They spoke positively about working in their teams, and the work they did on the ward. The morale of staff at both locations we visited was good, and no concerns were raised by staff.

Staff had access to wellbeing support, and adjustments were made, when possible, within the safe running of the wards.

The service’s sickness and absences at Westbourne Green was low at 3.8%, at Westwood Park there was an increase to 8.48%, however this was being safely managed within the service, and the Trust’s sickness absence policy was being followed to support long term absence of staff.

The service had newsletters, which regularly highlighted individual and teams’ achievements of staff and staff told us they felt proud of these achievements and the recognition.