CQC Rates Teesside Hospice as Outstanding

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has upgraded the rating of Teesside Hospice in Middlesbrough, from good to outstanding following an inspection in June. Teesside Hospice provides care and treatment to people over the age of 18 who require specialist palliative and end of life care. The service also provides support to people’s loved ones and bereaved people, including children from the age of seven years old. The inspection was carried out as part of CQC’s continual checks on the safety and quality of adult social care services. Following the inspection, the rating of safe has improved from requires improvement to good, and the ratings for effective, caring, safe and responsive have improved from good to outstanding. Gill Hodgson-Reilly, CQC deputy director of operations in the north-east, said: “When we inspected Teesside Hospice, we found an exceptional service where staff and leaders worked hard to provide the best possible care to people at the end of their lives. Kind and caring staff understood people’s needs and went the extra mile to help make their time at the hospice comfortable and happy. “Leaders had an exceptional understanding of the service they managed and ensured people were given the best possible care. Staff told us leaders were consistently approachable, even out of hours and we saw leaders engage with people attending the service during our visit. “The hospice embedded itself into the local community through a range of charity shops and attendances at local events. Volunteers supported these events who often had their own experiences of using the hospice and were able to share positive experiences. “Leaders were aware of discrimination and inequality that could disadvantage different groups of people in accessing care. For example, staff had listened to the voices of people accessing the homeless services locally who said they ‘don’t feel like they fit’ at the hospice. The team sought experiences from other hospices to develop a more accessible service for this group of people. “We reviewed feedback from a same sex couple who had experienced ‘not fitting in’ at other services. Their hospice experience here was described as a ‘you and me the same’ connection where they were able to laugh and cry with peers whom they never thought they would connect with. “Leaders and staff should be very proud of the findings in this report. It’s clear the service was committed to treating people as individuals ensuring their wellbeing and needs were fully met. Other services should look to this report to see if there’s anything to learn from it.”

Source: Original reporting via Care Quality Commission