QE Gateshead has once again been officially rated as a great PLACE in a new assessment by patients, public representatives, staff and professionals.
The hospital maintained their fantastic rating after again scoring above the national average in every category in the annual Patient Led Assessment of the Care Environment (PLACE) report and has improved on scores from the previous year by almost 15%.
The PLACE report measures the quality of a range of issues across the NHS and helps provides an overview of how an organisation is performing against a wide range of non-clinical activities, which can impact on a patient’s experience of care. The assessment process itself encourages the involvement of patients, patient representatives and staff whilst assessing criteria of non-clinical aspects of hospital care such as; cleanliness, food, the general maintenance of buildings and privacy, dignity and wellbeing.
The inspectors overall found the standard of cleanliness was agreed to be excellent throughout the hospital as well as significant improvements made over the last 12 months to implement dementia requirements and improvements in signage ensuring toilet facilities are easily recognisable.
Overall scores for Gateshead 2017
- Cleanliness: 99.94%
- Food: 93.89%
- Organisation Food: 92.06%
- Ward Food: 94.41%
- Privacy, Dignity and Wellbeing: 85.30%
- Condition, Appearance and Maintenance: 97.05%
- Dementia: 78.27%
- Disability: 86.70%
This complements the hospital’s current rating of ‘good’ with outstanding care by the national healthcare regulator, Care Quality Commission (CQC), placing the QE among the best hospitals in the country and building on their long standing national reputation for providing high quality care.