Patient-Led Assessments of the Care Environment (PLACE) evaluate the patient environment and how well it supports and enhances the provision of clinical care.
A team of Patient Assessors and hospice staff evaluated areas such as quality of food and drink, hygiene, general building maintenance and how well the building meets the needs of people living with dementia or a disability.
John Taylor Hospice has exceeded the national average in all eight areas – scoring 100% for cleanliness, ward food and protecting people’s privacy, dignity and wellbeing.
- Privacy, dignity and wellbeing – 100%
- Food – 99%
- Condition, appearance and maintenance – 99%
- Cleanliness – 100%
- Dementia – 96%
- Disability – 96%
- Ward food – 100%
- Organisation food – 98%
The hospice’s Housekeeping Team has been praised for their role in helping the hospice to achieve top marks for cleanliness, as has the Catering Team whose high-quality service earned a ward food rating of 100%.
When PLACE assessors considered how dementia-friendly the Erdington-based hospice is they focused on physical attributes such decor, signage, flooring and the availability of handrails. They also assessed the ability of hospice staff to create a welcoming and understanding environment for people with dementia.
Following significant investment in training and building improvements, the hospice has seen its score in this area increase markedly from 80% to 96% when compared with the previous year’s assessment.
Hospices Head of Corporate and Commercial Services Phil Murphy said: “Grant funding, including a generous donation from the Morrisons Foundation, has enabled us to make a number of important changes to the environment.
“To ensure our hospice is a familiar and safe environment for people with dementia we have fitted new handrails throughout patient areas, redecorated rooms, fitted blue toilet seats and grabrails and installed silent visual clocks, new signs and seating. To further support people with dementia we have made visual changes to our food and drink menus and introduced patient name boards which help people to identify their preferences.”
Gail Hipkiss, Director of Corporate and Commercial Services at John Taylor Hospice, said: “We are delighted and proud of these assessment results. Every member of our team works extremely hard to ensure that patients and their families receive the very best care in a comfortable, clean, safe and supportive environment and that their experience of John Taylor Hospice is a positive one. We will continue to ensure our standards remain high and we will act upon the assessors’ comments to see how we can improve even further.”