Cancer hospital rated one of best nationally for patient facilities

Posted 27th August 2014

Merseyside and Cheshire’s specialist cancer centre has been rated one of the best hospitals in the country in a national inspection programme led by patients.

The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre NHS Foundation Trust, which has its main base in Wirral, scored some of the highest marks in the country in the PLACE inspection whose results are published today (27th August).

The Patient-Led Assessments of the Care Environment (PLACE) programme sees teams of patient representatives and healthcare staff assessing hospital facilities in four areas: their cleanliness; the quality of patient food; respect for people’s privacy, dignity and wellbeing; and their general condition, appearance and maintenance. The inspection team needs to have a minimum of 50 per cent members who are patient representatives rather than staff.

The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre got a perfect score for Condition, Appearance and Maintenance (100.00%) and an almost perfect score for cleanliness (99.88%). It also performed extremely strongly on Food (96.67%) and Privacy, Dignity and Wellbeing (93.18%). The average scores nationally were nine out of 10 for Cleanliness and Condition, Appearance and Maintenance and eight out of 10 for Food and Privacy, Dignity and Wellbeing.

Patient Michael Parton (pictured), 57, from the Isle of Man, has been in The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre for the last five weeks. “I’d heard this place was excellent and it has certainly lived up to that expectation. You get three or four different choices of food – things like omelette, beef stew, shepherd’s pie or a sandwich if you don’t feel like a full meal. You get some hospitals where even the staff won’t eat the food but it’s very good here.”

Helen Porter, Director of Nursing and Quality at The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre, said: “Clean, comfortable facilities, a calm and peaceful environment, nourishing and delicious food, and respect for privacy and dignity are incredibly important to patients’ morale and recovery. It’s something we take seriously as a trust and put a lot of thought into, so we are absolutely delighted to have been rated one of the best trusts nationally for the quality of our patient facilities.”

The PLACE results for 2014 have been published today by the Health and Social Care Information Centre at http://www.hscic.gov.uk/catalogue/PUB14780.