- Hospice service
St Richard's Hospice
Report from 19 February 2024 assessment
Contents
Ratings
Our view of the service
St Richard’s hospice is a purpose built hospice that provides care for adults with a serious progressive illness. The service aims to improve patients' quality of life from diagnosis, during treatment and throughout their last days. The service also supports people important to patients. Annually the hospice supports more than 3100 patients, family members and bereaved people in Worcestershire. As an independent registered charity, it relies on donations and gifts in wills for the majority of its income with the remainder funded by the NHS. The In-Patient Unit is a 17-bed purpose built unit. This opened in 2006 and designed to deliver care that meets the specific holistic needs of all patients and support their families. The service has facilities which include a dedicated family suite, and updated technology and equipment. There is an onsite living well service that supports community patients in an outpatient setting. There is a community nursing service that provides specialist palliative care and nursing care in the community in South Worcestershire. Staff include a team of doctors, nurses, health care assistants, specialist nurses, allied health professionals, including specialist palliative care social workers, counsellors, spiritual care leads, occupational therapist and physiotherapists. Qualified nurses and health care assistants deliver care on site 24 hours a day. Throughout 2023, the service coordinated care and support for 3,108 patients, loved ones and the bereaved. St. Richard’s Hospice has been registered with the CQC since January 2011. It is registered to provide the following regulated activity: Treatment of disease, disorder or injury and has had a registered manager in post since 2019. A short notice announced inspection was carried out on the 4 March 2024. One inspector and operational manager were onsite and supported by an Assessor and operational manager offsite.
People's experience of this service
Patient survey results from 2023 rated the service as either 'good' or 'excellent. The service listened to and acted upon patient and loved one's feedback and worked closely with network partners and patient groups to improve and tailor services for everyone. The service had recently completed a project to review all the patient and family evaluation methods that we use. Following this they developed an electronic form that is sent to all relevant patients and families across our inpatient, out-patient and community services. The service also introduced paper-based forms and feedback boxes on the Inpatient unit to enable 'in the moment' feedback. People felt safe and supported and felt they could get information and advice about their physical, mental and emotional health. Feedback provided by patients about a wellbeing café the service had opened in 2023 included comments about accessing help in all areas of their life and also 'creating light in times of darkness'. The café was a central place where patients and their loved ones could access advice, support and signposting to relevant services and included social and financial support. Patients were able to self refer to the hospice whose aim with the wellbeing café was to provide a softer approach to hospice care by enabling patients see what the space is like and engage at their own pace. A total of 324 referrals to hospice services such as family support and hospice at home teams had been made up to August 2023 from the wellbeing café.