Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust

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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.

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

Good: This meant people were supported and treated with dignity and respect; and involved as partners in their care.

At our last assessment we rated caring as good. At this assessment the rating has remained good. Staff 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 involved patients in care planning and risk assessment and actively sought their feedback on the quality of care provided. Staff informed and involved families and carers appropriately.

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.

Staff attitudes and behaviours when interacting with patients showed that they were discreet, respectful and responsive, providing patients with help, emotional support and advice at the time they needed it. We carried out an observation of care and saw that staff were very responsive to patients and spoke to them with care. patience and kindness. We saw senior leaders engage with patients to support ward staff during some challenging interactions.

Staff supported patients to understand and manage their care, treatment or condition. They provided information and guidance including printed information for patients.

Staff directed patients to other services when appropriate and, if required, supported them to access those services. Examples of this included access to substance misuse services.

Patients said staff treated them well and behaved appropriately towards them. We spoke with 9 patients during the assessment. All 9 patients said that staff were kind and treated them with dignity and respect.

Staff understood the individual needs of patients, including their personal, cultural, social and religious needs. We saw that staff went out of their way to ensure that patients had access to activities that met their individual needs such as access to the PRIDE festival, Caribbean carnival and supporting a patient to get their hair plaited.

Staff said they could raise concerns about disrespectful, discriminatory or abusive behaviour or attitudes towards patients without fear of the consequences. They reported that they were well supported by both their team and their managers.

Staff maintained the confidentiality of information about patients.

The service made adjustments for disabled patients for example, by ensuring disabled people’s access to premises and by meeting patients’ specific communication needs. There were disabled bathrooms on each ward and patient’s ensuite bathrooms provided wheelchair access.

Staff ensured that patients could obtain information on treatments, local services, patients’ rights, how to complain and so on. There were patient notice boards on each ward with posters on complaints, advocacy, safeguarding, recovery college and solicitor’s contact details.

The information provided was in a form accessible to the particular patient group. Leaflets were available in an easy read format if required. Staff had created a pictorial managing finances care plan for a patient who had a learning disability and struggled with managing their finances.

Staff made information leaflets available in languages spoken by patients by accessing translation services on the internet and printing off for patients.

Managers ensured that staff and patients had easy access to interpreters and/or signers.

Patients had a choice of food to meet the dietary requirements of religious and ethnic groups and to account for allergies and intolerances. The menu catered for gluten free, kosher, halal, vegan, vegetarian and Caribbean food choices.

Staff ensured that patients had access to appropriate spiritual support. There was a hospital chaplain, and other spiritual leaders were invited to attend the wards to meet with patients. Those patients with leave were supported by staff to attend their chosen place of worship in the community. There was a multi faith room available for those patients who wished to access it.

Staff read patients’ rights to them in an appropriate way that they could understand. This was repeated until staff were assured that patients had understood. Staff explored consent to treatment with patients and this was recorded in patient records.

All patients were encouraged to attend their ward rounds and all other meetings relating to their care and treatment. They could request support from the advocacy services to represent their wishes and feelings and carers were invited with the patient’s permission. A document had been developed for patients to make a note of issues that they wished to raise at their meetings.

There was a range of activities on and off the wards seven days per week. Patients could participate in areas of interest and those with leave could visit the local community, escorted by staff. There was smoking cessation support, a gym and other wellbeing groups such as yoga along with an activities room for art and craft based activities.

Staff were aware of and dealt with any specific risk issues, such as falls. Patients with mobility difficulties had a falls risk assessment in place and staff care planned for these accordingly.

Staff identified and responded to changing risks to, or posed by, patients. The staff knew their patients well and risk assessments were reviewed at every multi-disciplinary team (MDT) meeting and after each incident.

Staff used de-escalation techniques to reduce the need for physical interventions when patients’ behaviours became heightened. We observed some good examples of staff using verbal de-escalation techniques, such as speaking softly and patiently to support patients who were distressed.

Staff felt respected, supported and valued.

Staff told us that they felt positive and proud about working for the provider and their team.

Staff had access to support for their own physical and emotional health needs through an occupational health service. The trust’s intranet included information for staff on how to access support for finances; flexible work and lifestyle support such as buying addition annual leave carer support, childcare support; family support (including fertility support); and domestic abuse. Staff could access counselling and psychological support through the internal Staff Wellbeing Service. There was also a confidential 24/7 phone service and dedicated pages on the staff intranet for suicide awareness and prevention.

The service’s staff sickness and absence were above the average for the provider. Social inclusion and recovery and Intervention wards were closest to target at 6.63% and 6.62%.The assessment and engagement ward was higher at 14% and the Tatton unit was at 12%.

The provider recognised staff success within the service for example, through staff awards. Prospect Place had introduced a monthly newsletter that recognised staff for their successes, there was a weekly start the week bulletin which had a section for staff recognition and there was an annual awards night and ceremony for staff across the trust.

Staff appraisals included conversations about career development and how it could be supported. There was a trust learning management system which had an extensive range of courses which staff could access with management permission. Examples of these included managers induction, menopause at work, neurodiversity awareness for managers and an introduction to project management. There was a range of apprenticeship programmes available which supported leadership development.