Following their recent return to Henderson Street after a £9 million refurbishment, St Andrew’s Hospice has, this week, received the final report of an inspection by their regulator, Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS). The inspectors carried out an unannounced inspection visit just two weeks after the hospice re-opened. Their extensive 2 day inspection was based on the new “Quality Framework” which came into force on the 1st April. St Andrew’s are the first hospice to be inspected under this new framework which aims to help organisations; reflect, evaluate and make decisions about how best to improve outcomes for users of their services.

Inspectors undertook the inspection based on nine domains which look at all aspects of the organisation including; Care, Leadership, Environment, Governance and Participation. These nine domains are broadly grouped under three headings relating to:

1. Outcomes and impact
2. Service delivery, and
3. Vision and leadership.

As part of the change to their inspection methodology, HIS have changed their scoring system from a 6 point scale to a 4 point scale. Although HIS inspected and reported against all 9 Domains of their Framework, they only publish grades for the following 3 indicators.

Quality Indicator	St Andrew’s Hospice Grade
2.1 – Patients and service user experience	4 – Exceptional
5.1 – Safe delivery of care, and	3 – Good
9.4 – Leadership of improvement and change.	3 – Good

Patients and families spoken to during the inspection reported the following:

‘They look at [patient’s name] as a person, not an illness. It’s all very dignified. They make the unbearable, bearable. Nothing is a bother for the staff.’

Staff spoken to during the inspection said:

‘I love the patient contact and variety of work, it is important to us all that the patients are well looked after’

Bruce High, Chief Executive of St Andrew’s Hospice expressed his delight with the results of the inspection: “I am extremely pleased today to see the HIS Inspection Report for St Andrew’s Hospice published. This has been an exciting and challenging period in the history of St Andrew’s Hospice, culminating in the opening of our refurbished building on the 4^th April 2018. As our inspection took place only two weeks after the new Hospice opened I am especially delighted with the feedback received from HIS.

“The excellent quality of care described in the report, has been achieved through the hard work and dedication of all our staff who continue to put our patients and their loved ones at the centre of everything that they do. We now have a beautiful new hospice, which gives us an excellent platform from which to develop the future; reach, variety and quality of our service provision to respond to the ever changing needs of the Lanarkshire people that we are privileged to serve.”

To view the report, please visit:
http://www.healthcareimprovementscotland.org/our_work/inspecting_and_regulating_care/independent_healthcare/hospices/st_andrews_hospice.aspx