The Arthur Rank hospice is operated by the Arthur Rank Hospice Charity. The hospice runs a number of services including 23 inpatient beds and a hospice at home night service from 10pm to 7am seven days a week, a specialist palliative community nursing team that conducts assessments and provides patients with advice in their own homes. The service also runs day hospice centres from the Arthur Rank Hospice site and a separate site in Wisbech and specialist palliative care outpatient clinics including a lymphoedema clinic and complex pain management clinic.

The hospice provides care and treatment for patients with a life-limiting condition who are aged 18 years or over.

We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology. We carried out the short-announced part of the inspection on 5 December 2018. An unannounced follow-up inspection took place on 18 December 2018.

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 our 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

We rated this service as Outstanding overall.

• Staff kept patients 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 patients and carers in decisions about their care and treatment.

• Staff cared for patients with compassion, treating them with dignity and respect. Staff truly respected and valued patients 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 people from their 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 maintenance and of equipment did not always keep people safe. We found out of date consumable equipment and one piece of electrical equipment that had not received a service within the hospice’s agreed timescales.

• 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.

Amanda Stanford

Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals (Central)