Mount Vernon Hospital is still beating the national average for cleanliness and great food, a recent ‘patient-led’ inspection shows.
Mount Vernon and Hillingdon Hospitals also upped their scored for dementia – and disability -friendliness, according to the latest PLACE assessment.
PLACE (The Patient Led Assessment of the Care Environment) is a self-assessment tool designed to give a non-technical view of the buildings and non-clinical services provided in hospitals. The inspection in April and May covered 12 wards, eight outpatient areas, accident and emergency, other departments, and patient food across four wards.
Inspections were carried out by monitoring group Healthwatch Hillingdon, staff of the Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Trust Governors. For the first time the assessment teams also included a group of five youth assessors (aged 17-19 years old) from the Young Healthwatch Hillingdon initiative.
Both hospitals were well up on the national average for the quality of food provided for patients, visitors and staff, continuing a trend that has seen the Trust win a Health Business Award and earn high praise from food guru Pru Leith. In recent months the Trust scored a 96.45 per cent rating, against a 90.17 per cent national average.
Cleanliness was also found to be above the national average, despite the drawbacks of an ageing estate at both hospitals, which the inspectors noted. Hillingdon Hospital – parts of which are more than 50 years old – even improved its ‘condition, maintenance and wellbeing’ score on last year.
Areas for improvement were largely as a result of the elderly buildings, with a few items such as dementia-friendly signage and lack of corridor handrails flagged up for attention. The Trust has drawn up an action plan based on key themes of the PLACE assessment and this will be monitored going forward.
Steve Wedgwood, the Trust’s Assistant Director of Facilities, said: “Once again the Trust has achieved well in its Patient Led Assessment of the Care Environment and has again exceeded the national average scores for cleanliness and patient food and for the first time in the area of privacy, dignity and wellbeing.
“This represents the patient’s view of how we are doing as a Trust in key areas and shows the progress that continues to be made.”
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