Archived: Shooting Star House

Updated 1 April 2020

Shooting Star House is operated by Shooting Star Children’s Hospice. The service opened in 2003 and underwent significant refurbishment in 2018. It provides specialist end of life care for children and young people with a range of life-limiting conditions living in West London and Surrey including all 15 boroughs to the west of London.

The service provided care to babies, children and young people who had been diagnosed with a life limiting condition and are unlikely to live beyond the age of 18 years. The care provided by the hospice extends to the child/young person and their extended family.

Shooting Star House (SSH) is a purpose-built hospice facility which has family accommodation as well as facilities to care for a child after they have died. The service had a Hospice at Home team based at SSH. This team also provides end of life and respite services in the community, at hospitals, and other respite and community settings to ensure choice to the families.

The hospice currently offers eight inpatient beds for specialist palliative care. There was a large community palliative care service led by a specialist registered nurse. There was a team of health care assistants that provide practical and emotional care in the home for children and young people in approximately the last few weeks of their life. This service can provide up to 1000 visits per month for children and young people who needed palliative care input.

Updated 1 April 2020

Shooting Star House is operated by Shooting Star Children’s Hospice. The hospice runs a number of services including eight inpatient beds and a hospice at home service seven days a week, and a specialist palliative community nursing team that conducts assessments and provides children, young people and their families with care, support and advice in their own homes.

The hospice provides care and treatment for children and young person with a life-limiting condition who are aged from pre-birth to 21 years.

We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology. We carried out the unannounced part of the inspection from 2 to 3 December 2019.

To get to the heart of patients’ experiences of care and treatment, we ask the same five questions of all services: are they safe, effective, caring, responsive to people's needs, and well-led? Where we have a legal duty to do so we rate services’ performance against each key question as outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate.

Throughout the inspection, we took account of what people told us and how the provider understood and complied with the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

Services we rate

Our rating of this service stayed the same. We rated it as Good overall.

• Staff kept children, young people and their families safe from harm and abuse. Risks were assessed, monitored and managed appropriately.

• Staff followed best practice in relation to infection prevention and control.

• Care and treatment records were accurate, stored securely and provided comprehensive details of care and treatment.

• Staff recognised incidents and knew how to report them. Managers investigated incidents and made improvements to the service.

• Staff had the appropriate skills, training, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care and treatment.

• Staff delivered care and treatment in line with evidence-based practice.

• Staff involved children, young people, their families and carers in decisions about their care and treatment.

• Staff cared for children, young people and their families with compassion, treating them with dignity and respect. Staff truly respected and valued children and your people as individuals and empowered them as partners in their care, practically and emotionally, by offering an exceptional service.

• The service was proactive in meeting the needs of children and young people from the whole community. The services provided reflected the needs of the population served and ensured flexibility, choice and continuity of care.

• The service was proactive at engaging with groups that were hard to reach to ensure equitable access to its services.

• There were clear processes for staff to manage complaints and concerns.

• There was an open and transparent culture, with engaged and experienced leadership.

  However, we also found the following issues that the service provider needs to improve:

• The storage of equipment did not always keep people safe. We found that equipment was stored in toilets and other areas of the service which were not in line with good practice.

• Not all outcome measures collected by the service were reported on during governance meetings meaning that outcome measures did not always shape and improve services.

  Nigel Acheson

  Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals (London)

Updated 1 April 2020

We rated this service as good overall because:

• The service had enough staff with the right qualifications, skills, training and experience to keep people safe from avoidable harm and to provide the right care and treatment. Staff had access to a robust training and competency programme to ensure they had the skills required to provide good quality care.

• The service provided care and treatment based on national guidance and evidence of its effectiveness. Managers checked to make sure staff followed guidance.

• Staff of different kinds worked together as a team to benefit children, young people and their families. Doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals supported each other to provide good care.

• The service planned and provided services in a way that met the needs of local people. The services provided reflected the needs of the population served and they ensured flexibility, choice and continuity of care. The facilities and premises were appropriate for the services that were delivered.

• There was compassionate, inclusive and effective leadership at all levels. There was a strategy, and supporting plans, aligned with the wider health economy that were stretching, challenging and innovative, while remaining achievable. There was a demonstrated commitment to system-wide collaboration and leadership.

• Staff felt positive and proud to work in the organisation. The culture centred on the needs and experience of people who used services. Staff told us that they felt pride in the organisation and the work the carried out to ensure children, young people and their families received good quality care.

• There was an extensive team of volunteers who helped support the service. There was a volunteer strategy, a volunteer induction and training programme. Volunteers were valued members of the service who were provided with support and who felt part of the hospice team.