St Luke's Hospice

St Luke’s Hospice provides a range of specialist palliative care services for adults within a dedicated building offering 20 inpatient beds along with outpatient services. The hospice also has a community team who provide care and support for people and families in the home environment.

At the hospice there is a therapies and rehabilitation centre providing day care support, physiotherapy, occupational therapy (including art therapy), wellbeing services (including complementary therapies), psychology, spiritual care, social work and bereavement services.

St Luke’s had a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons.’ Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run. The registered manager also has the role of deputy chief executive and director of patient care.

Day-to-day operation of the hospice is delegated by the Board of Trustees to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). The CEO discharges responsibilities through the Hospice Executive Team.

At the time of our inspection there were 18 people being cared for on the Inpatient Centre, 10 people were being supported in the therapies and rehabilitation centre and approximately 250 people were being cared for in the community around the city of Sheffield.

People, relatives and healthcare professionals consistently praised the exceptional standards of care, treatment and support provided by hospice staff.

People received exceptional care which was founded on best practice ensuring people were involved and central in the planning and review of their care.

We observed staff supporting people who used the service with consideration, dignity and utmost respect.

People received excellent care and treatment which enabled them to have a dignified and pain free death. Families and those that mattered to the person were supported to spend quality time with them. Relatives were also able to access bereavement support following their family member’s death.

People gave exceptional feedback about the meals and innovation provided by the hospice surrounding their nutritional needs.

St Luke’s Hospice was continually striving for excellence through consultation, research, and reflective practice. The hospice was extremely forward thinking and had a number of new developments underway based on best or evidence based practice to improve care or develop new initiatives.

We saw a number of quality assurance systems and audits to monitor performance and to drive continuous improvement.

The hospice had undertaken innovative work to support people and communicate with different groups of people within the city of Sheffield.

We found suitable arrangements were in place to help safeguard people from abuse. Staff knew what to do if an allegation of abuse was made to them or if they suspected that abuse had occurred.

We found people were cared for by sufficient numbers of suitably skilled, competent and experienced staff who were safely recruited.

We were informed there were over 800 volunteers providing support to the hospice. Volunteers had a wide range of skills and experience. Some worked in the charity shops, others helped with fundraising, running events, collecting donations, driving, bereavement support and many other roles. All the St Luke’s staff, people and relatives we spoke with said volunteers formed a vital part of the St Luke's team.

The service had appropriate arrangements in place to manage medicines so people were protected from the risks associated with medicines. Staff had received training and support to manage people’s medicines.

Systems were in place to maintain the safety of the hospice. The environment was well designed, welcoming, well maintained, clean and suited people’s needs.

The hospice provided a wide range of learning opportunities to staff employed in the service and other professionals.

People said that they took part in, and enjoyed, a wide range of activities and therapies which were extremely beneficial to their care and support.

The service was actively involved in building local community links, took part in project work and close working wither other hospices and organisations at regional and national level. This was to promote excellent standards for palliative and end of life care.

We talked with three patients and four relatives during our inspection. Patients told us they were happy with care at the hospice, liked all the staff who looked after them, thought the hospice was kept clean and they enjoyed their food. Some comments captured included 'yes [the care] is very good 'excellent', 'staff are very friendly', 'the staff are brilliant', 'nothing is too much trouble', '[I've] been spoilt and pampered' and 'wonderful ' attend to all my needs.'

Patients were supported to have adequate nutrition and hydration.

We found there were processes in place to ensure the safety, availability and suitability of equipment.

We found there were effective recruitment and retention processes in place.

We found people were protected from the risks of unsafe or inappropriate care and treatment because accurate and appropriate records had been maintained.