St Catherine’s Hospice
Annual Quality Account
April 2013 – March 2014
St Catherine’s Hospice Ltd
Registered as a Charity no. 281362 and as a Company in England no. 1525404
Registered office: Malthouse Road, Crawley, West Sussex RH10 6BH
www.stch.org.uk
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VISION
St Catherine’s aspires to a time when every individual can approach
death informed, supported and free of pain.
MISSION
Leading the community in support of all those facing death and
bereavement.
VALUES
We are caring
We care for everyone we support with respect, compassion
and understanding.
We are professional
We work efficiently and effectively to the highest standards and will
challenge ourselves to continuously improve the services we provide.
We are passionate
We work with energy and enthusiasm to achieve excellence in
everything we do.
We are open
We want everyone to express their thoughts, emotions and opinions
honestly, and we encourage feedback.
We are one team
We work together and value the contribution that every individual can
make towards the achievement of our mission and strategy.
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Introduction from the Chief Executive
It is my pleasure to introduce the Quality Account 2013/14 for St Catherine’s
Hospice. The Quality Account is produced for consideration by St Catherine’s
Board of Trustees at its meeting 12th May and, following approval will be
submitted to East Surrey Clinical Commissioning Group in order to meet the
requirements of the NHS standard contract 2013/14. Though produced for that
requirement, the narrative and statistics encompass work that the hospice has
engaged with across its whole catchment area - East Surrey, West Sussex and
East Sussex.
The pursuit of quality in all we do continues to drive St Catherine’s staff and
volunteers. During 2013/14 it influenced the creation of our values, informed the
revision of our Mission and shaped the overarching objectives of our strategy.
We have continued to challenge ourselves by considering how we can offer the
best quality service to those we care for and recognising the need for service
adaptation and measurement. The 5 year strategy, 3 year business plan and one
year corporate programme have each consistently addressed how we can and
will provide evidence and assurance to our regulators of the ongoing quest for
quality and further enhance the service we offer to our patients and their
families.
The following report outlines clearly how the St Catherine’s quality agenda is
progressing, the improvements that have been made, and how our objectives
will ensure patients, carers and family members, staff and volunteers, donors,
supporters and commissioners all see the importance of being connected to an
organisation which has quality people and processes at its heart.
Shaun O’Leary
Chief Executive
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STRATEGY
In 2013/2014 we developed a five year Business Plan in order to describe how we are going
to achieve our strategic objectives.
We realised we needed to develop a new approach to quality in order to embed the ethos
and practice of continuous improvement into organisational and operational effectiveness in
all departments. Whilst there was much good activity already underway we felt we were
failing to capitalise on sharing best practice, and we were not working to common shared
objectives. In short we were working in silos rather than as one team when it came to our
approach to quality.
Also, we felt we needed to respond differently to the changing drivers in the external market,
and to the changing expectations of our patients and service users. Whilst we knew we were
delivering excellence in so many ways, we could not always articulate or measure the impact
that we had, whether on the people we cared for, or in our local community. We also
struggled to evidence how we were contributing to the local healthcare economy and in
particular how we helped people to stay out of hospital at end of life or to leave hospital more
quickly. We realised we needed more evidence about the outcomes of our care and
interventions as well as more measures to illustrate the efficiency, effectiveness and quality
of our services.
We commissioned a whole hospice six month project to enable us to evidence our impact
through measuring the outcomes of all our services and interventions with patients, carers,
families of patients and all people we have supported. We wanted the results of this project
to help us to demonstrate the effectiveness of our services in meeting the needs of services
users. We also recognised we needed this information to be able to demonstrate the
effectiveness of our services to our stakeholders including our commissioners, funders and
donors. This would help us attract new sources of funding. We wanted also to have the
tools, resources and skills to measure the difference our care and interventions made for all
people we support and for the community. In short, we wanted to be able to describe the
changes, benefits, learning or other effects that happens as a result of our work.
This project has now reached delivery phase. We are working towards a pan hospice roll out
of outcome measures in all departments. We have prioritised the roll out of a range of pilots
in our clinical departments using Help the Hospices recommended audit tools. This work is
being coordinated through our Clinical Quality and Effectiveness Group.
We have also created a new role to lead in the development of this approach to quality – a
Quality and Information Manager. This person will own the development of a hospice quality
management system. This will include an organisational framework of governance and
include clinical governance. It will also include a framework of shared processes, systems
and tools which will embed a culture of efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery and
continuous improvement into the organisation.
This Quality Account for 2013/2014 follows the required format and will be submitted to NHS
Choices and uploaded onto the NHS England website.
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Part 1
The year ahead: Priorities for improvement 2014/15
We have identified areas for improvement in the coming year, under each of the domains of
quality set out in the Department of Health Report.
1.1 Patient Safety
1.1a
 What..?
Review and revision of all governance procedures, groups and responsibilities, including
the Trustees.
 Why..?
Following an independent review and also following recruitment of new Trustees.
 How monitored..?
A rolling annual programme of clinical and non-clinical audit will be implemented,
incorporating a comprehensive suite of Help the Hospices (HtH) audit tools that can be
benchmarked externally.
A comprehensive complaints procedure and wider evidence that action has been taken
as a result of any complaint or concern.
The introduction and implementation of After Action Reviews (AARs), and evidence of
changes to practice/education and learning as a result.
1.1b
 What..?
The introduction and implementation of the new PLACE (Patient Led Assessment of the
Care Environment) initiative to evidence patients are treated with care, compassion and
dignity, in a clean, safe environment.
 Why..?
Hospice patients should be cared for with care, compassion and dignity in a clean safe
environment. Where standards fall short, they should be able to draw it to the attention of
managers and hold the service to account. PLACE assessments will provide a clear
message, directly from patients, about how the environment or services might be
enhanced.
 How monitored..?
A selected group of assessors will visit the hospice to access how our environment
supports patients' privacy, dignity, catering, cleanliness and general building
maintenance. The assessments will take place every year, and results will be reported
publicly to help drive improvements in the care environment. The results will show how
hospices and hospitals are performing nationally and locally enabling us to use as a
benchmarking tool. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) will also be able to access this
information pre inspection.
1.1c
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 What..?
The introduction of a more formal research culture at the hospice.
 Why..?
Historically hospices have tended towards a "this is how we have always done it"
approach with little attention being given to the evidence base and measuring outcomes.
With this culture, research in palliative care has been challenging. Recently it has been
recognised that to keep abreast of the current health environment and economy,
hospices need to be more proficient in collecting data to demonstrate their effectiveness
and worth. St Catherine's Hospice (StCH) is addressing this through the recently
published strategy, business plan and outcomes documents. From a clinical perspective,
it is acknowledged that the growth of palliative care into a recognised professional
discipline requires the development of an evidence base to underpin practice. For this to
happen, staff need both skills in and knowledge of research methods and the
organisation in which they work needs to have a culture that values and prioritises
research.
 How monitored..?
The Journal Club will be in place for all teams by the end of 2014. A record of attendance
will be kept with a record of the paper discussed.
All members of staff will have, and achieve, at least one annual objective linked to the
Journal Club as part of the appraisal process.
We will ensure that all staff for whom attendance at study skills training is identified at
their appraisal, do attend.
We will:
 Set an outcome for the number of abstracts that will be submitted by StCH to key
conferences each year.
 Set an outcome for the number of articles that will be submitted for publishing in key
journals/texts each year.
 Identify a research lead for StCH.
 Issue updated research policy (which will include guidance for staff on steps to follow
when proposing participation in a research study) approved by Senior Management
Team (SMT).
 Incorporate research into job descriptions.
1.2 Clinical Effectiveness
1.2a
 What ?
We are beginning a pan-hospice programme to establish baseline measures, and
trialling and implementing a suite of tools and evaluation mechanisms. These tools will
inform working practice and provide outcomes and evidence for use internally and
externally.
 How monitored..?
By the end of the financial year 2014/15, each department will have a comprehensive
set of results and measures, reflected in an over-arching balanced scorecard presented
quarterly to Trustees evidencing performance in key areas of activity and governance.
St Catherine's has been innovative in its approach to this task, recognising the need for
an interim specialist to develop the work. They have built a bespoke, comprehensive set
of outcomes for StCH, allocating appropriate tools and measurements from the
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disparate variety available, none of which provides a comprehensive package of
measures in itself.
The outcomes will inform StCH new strategy and business plan internally, and reference
certain external datum including the NHS Outcomes Framework 2014/15, CQC
requirements, Minimum Data Set (MDS) and National Institute for Health and Care
Excellence (NICE) quality standards. Wherever possible we will be using tools that
enable benchmarking externally.
1.2b
 What
StCH is introducing a new role of Quality and Information Manager to be appointed
shortly.
 Why..?
To ensure an holistic approach, and to support of the new Workforce Strategy and
introduction of KPIs and SMART targets.
 How monitored..?
In addition to conventional data such as patient numbers, age, and ethnicity, StCH will
be able to evidence such things as:
 meeting self-imposed targets for referral to contact times.
 the work it does to facilitate and support rapid discharges from hospital(s) to
Preferred
Place of Care (PPC).
 increase in patients dying in Preferred Place of Death (PPD) - where PPD is known.
 maximising capacity in IPU and day hospice.
1.3 Patient experience
1.3a
 What..?
The Website Project will redesign and re-launch the hospice web based communication
platforms, establishing a flexible design scheme and site structure that delivers three
main web environments:
- Internet - public facing site replacing current stch.org.uk site
- Intranet - staff only site replacing current schcrawes01/intranet2007 site
- Extranet portal - new site providing secure access for partners to restricted and
controlled information.

Why..?
The current hospice website has been in place since 2009, is visited by over 97,500
people per year and provides details of the hospice services and fundraising activities
with over 1,300 pages on the site.
Since implementation, the website has evolved and the volume of information published
has grown. As with the public hospice website, the internal staff only website suffers
from the same issues.
The hospice has now reached a critical point where its websites must help deliver its
vision and strategic direction by reflecting: increased use of social media to leverage
fundraising opportunities; social media brand building and hospice brand changes;
digital media community engagement; facilitate direct response; technology
developments both through delivery and use e.g. smartphones, tablets; accessibility
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standards; increased reach; optimisation for market use and behaviour; new service
delivery demands e.g. information portal to partners, volunteers, etc; centralised staff
information and communications tool.
 How monitored..?
The Website Project will be delivered using the standard Hospice Project Methodology
and will be controlled and monitored by a Steering Committee containing members from
the Senior Management Team and key stakeholders from across the hospice.
1.3b
 What..?
The implementation of a Hub.
 Why..?
As a way to facilitate StCH engagement with patients, families, customers, the
community, and other care professionals. To reach more people (e.g. through the
changes to community nursing structure, changes to outpatients and day hospice
services and the implementation of a new triage system), and an increase in the support
for non-cancer patients.
 How monitored..?
Through surveys and feedback from service users and staff. Through increased uptake
of different services offered. Reported back through updates to SMT and also via the
Corporate Programme.
Part 2
How we have done?
Review of priorities set within Quality Accounts framework 2012/13
We have identified areas for improvement in the coming year, under each of the domains of
quality set out in the Department of Health Report.
Patient Safety
1.1a
 What?
We said we would introduce a policy to support the arrangements and
procedures of working with external contractors on the hospice site.
A policy is now in place and has been used by on-site contractors. Its use has been
reviewed by the Health and Safety Committee.
1.1b
 What?
We said we would introduce an e-learning training package for key aspects of
Health and Safety (H&S) for staff and volunteers, including General H&S, Fire, and
Manual Handling.
E-learning for key aspects of Health and Safety is up and running across the
organisation. New staff and volunteers complete a training package within their first
week at the hospice.
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Clinical Effectiveness
1.2a
 What?
We were building on the foundations delivered by the review and updating of
Information and Computer Technology (ICT). The Community ICT Process
Re-engineering project aims to deliver new technology and operational processes
through mobile technology, e.g. smartphones and tablets, to clinical staff based
in the community.
The roll out of smartphone technology is in progress. Community teams are equipped the second tranche is due to be completed by the end of May 2014. Pilots have been
undertaken with tablets - final confirmation and imminent purchase of most appropriate
devices will roll out completely by the end of May 2014.
Patient experience
1.3a
 What?
We told you about our Communication Assistive Technology which delivers a
comprehensive and easy to use alternative communication system (Tobii
Eyegaze) for patients with a variety of speech difficulties associated with their
neurological condition.
Over the past year progress has been made with integrating the Tobii Eye gaze system
into every day use across the services as follows:
 funding was secured to increase the number of Tobii Eye gaze systems available so
that patients on the IPU, in Day Hospice (both sites) and potentially in the community
have access to this specialist equipment. All systems are now in place.
 A training programme, run by ICT, was rolled out to all staff to ensure that they had
the necessary skills to use the system.
 Ambassadors to champion its use are still yet to be fully identified but this has begun
to take shape.
The system has been used by a number of patients on the IPU and in Day Services
mainly facilitated by the therapies team. All patients so far have had Motor Neurone
Disease and as a consequence have had significant weakness in their hands and
dysarthria. All have enjoyed using the system, one gentlemen commenting that it was
"brilliant".
There have been challenges in the system being routinely used and these still need to
be addressed over the coming year. More staff need to be trained and have the
opportunity to practice using the system in between patient interactions. Ambassadors
for each service area still need to be identified and as such actively promote the system.
It should be introduced to patients early on so that they have the time to familiarise
themselves with the system. This may mean identification when in the community prior
to Day Hospice or IPU involvement. It would also be helpful to have support from SALT
(Speech and Language Therapist) who know the system well and have the knowledge
on how to support people with speech difficulties.
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Part 3
Review of Services
During 2013/14 StCH provided the following services to the people of Surrey and Sussex:
Community Specialist service (medicine, nursing, therapies, support)
Community Practical (Nursing) Care Team
Day services – at Crawley and at Caterham
Inpatient services
Bereavement services for families
Education and training
Night service with Princess Alice Hospice and Central Surrey Health
St Catherine’s Hospice has reviewed all data available on the quality of these services.
These reviews are integrated into our governance processes. We have a strong Clinical
Governance framework, and a programme of service review and audit to evaluate our
practice against evidence-based standards.
St Catherine’s Hospice is required to register with the Care Quality Commission (CQC), and
currently is registered for the following regulated activities:
Personal care
Transport services, triage and medical advice provided remotely
Treatment of disease, disorder or injury
Diagnostic and screening procedures
St Catherine’s Hospice treats patients over the age of 18 years and is CQC registered to
accommodate up to 20 patients on the IPU (currently staffed for 18 patients); up to 15
patients at the Day Hospice in Crawley and up to eight patients at the Day Hospice in Foxon
Lane, Caterham.
The CQC has had no cause to take enforcement action against St Catherine’s Hospice
during the reporting period, nor has St Catherine’s participated in any special reviews or
investigations by the CQC during the reporting period.
In the past year we have been inspected by the CQC and confirmed our compliance with the
regulations as set out under section 20 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008. We were
delighted to receive an excellent report following a routine, unannounced inspection in
February 2014.
The summary of the inspection is below:
'We found patients were provided with information and were asked for their consent prior to
care and treatment. Comments from staff and patients included, “I talk to patients about the
options, risks and benefits and make sure there is time to ask questions”, “The policy and
procedure gives guidance to staff and we document consent in notes” and “I had some
medication changes and they talked these through with me, discussed side effects and the
options available so I could decide.” We found patients' nutritional needs were assessed and
planned. Menus provided choice and alternatives to ensure nutritional needs were met.
Comments from patients included, “There are alternatives at mealtimes and they are always
prepared to do something else.” We found the service was clean and tidy and there were
systems in place to prevent the spread of infections. We found there were sufficient staff on
duty to care for patients. The staff had access to clinical supervision, support, training,
development opportunities and annual appraisal to ensure they had the required skills and
knowledge for their roles. Comments from patients regarding the staff team included, “Their
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one objective is to look after us; it’s wonderful here and I really value the service” and “The
nurses and doctors are absolutely super; they always have a smile." We found the service
had a complaints process and patients spoken with told us they felt able to complain if
necessary.'
The full report can be accessed at the CQC website or via StCH website.
Our Board of Trustees are currently reviewing governance systems to ensure that they are
robust.
Along with the work undertaken by the SMT giving clarity about the internal governance
system being reviewed and strengthened, the Board will interface with these changes and
make sure that the systems work together rather than duplicate.
A Trustee working group has been set up to look at this, and work with the rest of the
organisation to consider alignment, links and assurance processes. The output from this
should give us a clear understanding of how robust our systems are, and how evidence is
coming to Board for the benefit of assurance.
Participation in clinical audits
National
As an independent hospice, St Catherine’s has not participated in the NHS clinical audit
programme which covers subjects that do not apply to the hospice environment.
Local
During the year 2013/2014, the remit of the Clinical Audit Group (CAG) has changed. Since
September 2013, it has developed into a group of staff who will provide education on clinical
audit, mentor staff undertaking a clinical audit (from the stage of completing a registration
form), ensure there is clear guidance available to support the audit process and monitor the
progress of each audit to ensure completion of the audit cycle. Through CAG now
concentrating purely on clinical audit, it is envisaged that staff understanding of the
difference between clinical audit and other quality improvement projects will improve.
Service reviews and other quality improvement projects will be monitored through the
Clinical Quality and Effectiveness Group (CQEG) and decisions about areas which require
assessment by clinical audit will be decided at CQEG level or higher. It is recognised that
the CAG will retain the ability to make suggestions on clinical audit and implement
recommendations arising from clinical audit.
Teaching sessions on clinical audit were held for senior clinicians during the Summer to
identify gaps in knowledge and barriers to involvement in audit to support the development
of guidance (the step by step guides produced last year have further evolved) to support the
audit process and future education needs.
A poster was presented at the Help the Hospices conference in October 2013 entitled
"Developing Audit in a Hospice". After seeing this poster a request was received from
another unit for advice on developing a clinical audit group.
During the 2013/2014 year, a significant amount of time has been spent ensuring the
process for undertaking clinical audit at St. Catherine's Hospice is fit for purpose. Alongside
this, a new strategy and accompanying business plan have been drawn up meaning that
time has been spent ensuring a robust audit plan is in place for the next year (this has been
developed by the CQEG and agreed by SMT) in line with the business plan. With time being
spent ensuring the building blocks are in place for a continuing robust clinical audit plan and
process year on year, fewer clinical audits have been completed this year than would
normally be expected.
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Part 4
Research update
The number of patients receiving NHS services provided, or subcontracted, by
St Catherine’s Hospice in 2013/2014, and recruited to participate in research approved by a
research ethics committee was nil.
Part 5
Goals agreed with Commissioners
St Catherine’s Hospice’s contracted income in 2013/2014 was not conditional on achieving
quality improvement and innovation goals through the Commissioning for Quality and
Innovation payment framework. We have a contract with Surrey CCG only.
Part 6
What others say about St Catherine’s
Feedback from patients and carers is one of the most important ways in which
St Catherine’s measures the quality of the care given. We receive many compliments and
positive comments from patients and families.
We are also proud to have support from providing volunteering opportunities:
"I want to thank you all at St Catherine’s for helping us in supporting the programme. We
have so many customers that feed back the opportunity they was given has helped them
with self esteem, confidence and what great friendly helpful staff".
JJ
Pinnacle (Work placements through Job Centre)
"St Catherine's Hospice in Crawley provided placements to three individuals on our training
programme for single parents returning to work. The placements provided opportunities for
individuals who had been out of the workplace for some time, to gain great experience and
build their confidence to get back to work. One individual was even offered a job at the end
of the placement which was fantastic! Thank you so much to the staff at St Catherine's
Hospice for giving us this opportunity!"
KS BA (Hons) MCIPD
Pinnacle Trainer
Part 7
Data Quality
St Catherine’s Hospice is not required to submit data to the Hospital Episodes Statistics. In
accordance with the Department of Health, the hospice submits a National Minimum Data
Set (MDS) to the National Council for Palliative Care (see below).
Part 8
Review of data quality
The hospice undertakes regular quality assurance checks of its data. All statistics for the
Minimum Data Set are reviewed by the clinical team. Variances are queried and further
investigation followed through to establish trends or differences. Regular meetings take
place to look at ICT Governance and the electronic patient information system (Crosscare)
interface is also regularly reviewed. The integrity of the system and staff documentation is
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reviewed on an almost daily basis as the electronic records are used to support all multiprofessional meetings at the hospice.
Following a review of all our hospice Data, Information and Quality Systems we are looking
to recruit a Crosscare Co-ordinator. This role, reporting into the Business Directorate, will
provide a dedicated post that will take responsibility for running reports, providing staff
training and providing the focal point for future service developments.
8.1 Monitoring activity
Figures submitted to the Minimum Data Set Project
Hospice figures :
In-patient
Location before admission:
from home
from care home
from hospital - acute
from hospital - community
Average length of stay (all patients):
Completed stays - total discharges and deaths:
Admissions:
admitted for first time ever
repeat admission
occupancy
Location after end of stay:
died
home
care home
hospital - acute
hospital - community
Day Therapy:
new patients
total patients
..of which cancer / malignant diagnosis
..of which other diagnosis
Community:
new patients
continuing patients
re-referred patients
total patients
..of which cancer / malignant diagnosis
..of which other diagnosis
Deaths:
at home
at care home
at hospice
at community hospital
at acute hospital
other
Length of care episode: (av)
Patient and Family Support Team (PFST):
Total referrals
New assessments
Total sessions delivered
2012/13
2013/14
291
2
106
6
12.5 days
405
260
3
123
1
13 days
387
328
76
333
54
84.6%
272
118
12
1
0
249
110
23
4
1
113
164
129
35
138
197
166
31
1,128
561
60
1,749
1,398
351
1,025
331
246
245
18
181
4
161.2
1,199
555
73
1,827
1,424
399
1,080
368
292
216
13
188
3
162.8
612
444
2,167
731
532
2,540
Part 9
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Summary of Clinical Governance Overview
The Clinical Quality and Effectiveness Group (CQEG) was established in September 2013,
replacing the Implementing Clinical Governance Group. The remodelling of the group has
ensured that staff with an appropriate level of responsibility to make decisions and move
work forward and from appropriate clinical areas, form the membership of the group. The
CQEG provides a forum for discussion and a regular point of contact for clinical leads
facilitating clinical services developing in an integrated way. Clinicians benefit from the
attendance of non-clinicians with HR and ICT being represented. The group meets
fortnightly for two hours and is committed to working to their terms of reference.
The following governance groups feed into CQEG:






Clinical Audit Group
Medicines Management Group
Research Group
Education Group
User Group
Patient Safety Group (includes clinical health and safety and infection control)
Each group is expected to feedback its outcomes to the CQEG quarterly at a minimum and a
timetable has been circulated for this purpose.
9.1 Complaints
There were 10 clinical concerns and eight clinical complaints raised in 2013/14. All
complaints were concluded in the time frames set within our policy. Complaints were
managed in a variety of ways including face to face meetings, letter and e-mail.
Themes of these complaints were varied but overall the most common issue was around
communication - whether that be interpretation of staff behaviour; human error in getting the
right information onto Crosscare or management of expectations. Numbers of complaints are
not great but the organisation recognises it is important to learn from them and to manage
promptly and appropriately.
9.2 Clinical Incidents
Accidents and incidents are monitored in all areas of the hospice service – the community;
Day Hospice and the inpatient unit - as well as in-depth scrutiny of accident forms and
review for any emerging themes taking place throughout the year, a full end of year report is
produced and discussed in depth at the Clinical Health and Safety Group.
9.3 Medication Incidents
We have shared drug error data within clinical meetings on a quarterly basis. Reasons for
errors are closely investigated. We continue to benchmark numbers against other local
hospices. An end of year report is discussed in depth at the internal Medicines Management
Group.
There are comprehensive systems in place for checking alerts from the Central Alerting
System and also the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency.
9.4 Infection Control
Infection rates are closely monitored and there has been a decrease in these levels over
recent years. All patient transfers from hospital are swabbed for Methicillin-Resistant
Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) unless too unwell or not appropriate. We also monitor
Escherichia coli (E-Coli), Streptococcus A, Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE),
St Catherine’s Hospice Quality Account 2013/14
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Klebsiella and Norovirus, and Clostridium difficile (C.Diff). We have a Service Level
Agreement with the Infection Control Team at Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust
(SaSH).
Measures
2009/10 2010/11
N° of patients cared for with MRSA
3
11
N° of patients who contracted MRSA
Nil
Nil
whilst in Hospice
N° of patients found to have MRSA on
Nil
6
routine swabbing –
N° of patients cared for with C.Difficile
3
1
N° of patients who contracted C.Difficile
Nil
Nil
whilst in Hospice
2011/12 2012/13 2013/14
9
6
4
Nil
Nil
Nil
4
5
2
Nil
Nil
1
Nil
Nil
Nil
Part 10
Education and professional development opportunities for internal clinical
staff
Due to the significant changes within the nursing teams and reconfiguration of roles, the
education team have worked closely with the clinical teams to support those changes and
up-skill staff to carry out new roles. A new preceptorship programme has been developed
with the University of Surrey to support newly qualified staff coming to work at
St Catherine's. We are awaiting the Advanced Nurse Practitioners to participate in designing
a new development programme for staff recruited who are skilled but have no palliative care
experience to align with new clinical competencies. We are continually responding to
requests to educate newly recruited staff, and will need to do this in small groups as we still
have one teaching vacancy from September 2013.
We continue to hold a variety of educational sessions for clinical staff from different groups.
These are the numbers who attended/accessed external professional development
opportunities:
- Staff attending - Prospectus Courses - 154
- Staff attending - Non Prospectus - 58
- Staff accessing External Education and Development programmes - 89
A new online evaluation system has been designed that gives individuals, managers and
commissioners evidence of learning on study days / courses.
All staff attending prospectus programmes are now completing an assignment or a reflective
piece to demonstrate their learning to managers at their appraisal.
As well as these more formal sessions, the nursing teams have been continually encouraged
to develop link nurses with interests in particular topics, encouraged and supported to audit
their practice and deliver evidenced based care.
Teatime Topics continues to be a popular monthly education session for nursing staff. This
year we have invited three external speakers to cover important topics such the role of the
coroner and corneal donation, as well as sessions led by non-medical staff. A survey
conducted in 2013 confirmed that participants enjoy learning in this forum but tend not to
extend their learning by preparation or further personal reading.
A new learning events calendar has been designed on the intranet so that all learning events
taking place across the organisation can be accessed by all staff in one central place. This
calendar will go live in April 1 2014.
St Catherine’s Hospice Quality Account 2013/14
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Education and professional development opportunities for external clinical staff
Formal courses offered via our education centre have included individual topic-based days
as well as a series of five day programmes. The latter are annually quality assured by
Universities of Surrey and Brighton as Level 6 programmes. 161 of our external clinical
colleagues have attended our courses.
An innovative five day education programme for people with dementia at the end of life was
delivered twice (20 attendees on each programme) and evaluated very positively. We have
made positive relationships with the mental health, learning disability, social care, care home
and Alzheimer’s Society teams.
A new online clip has been developed with a local couple affected by dementia, which is
currently being edited and will be available on our website for GPs as a teaching tool about
having End of Life Care (EoLC) conversations and using the principles of Advance Care
Planning for people with dementia.
We were unable to run the University of Brighton module (EoLC for people with chronic and
long term conditions) at St Catherine's in October 2013 due to a lack of participants from the
hospice owing to staff changes and reorganisation.
We were commissioned to deliver EoLC education to 110 staff in care homes over the last
year.
We very recently won a bid for £108,252 from Health Education Kent, Surrey and Sussex
(HE KSS - a Local Education and Training Board and part of Health Education England) to
deliver compassionate care training during 2014 via nine hospices across three counties.
We have extended the training opportunities for medical staff by offering two week
placements for foundation doctors (in their first year of medical practice) from our local NHS
Trust (SaSH). There will be three annual placements and the first two cohorts in September
2013 and January 2014 were very well evaluated.
We continue to offer undergraduate medical placements to students from local general
practices and to work closely with Brighton & Sussex Medical school. Their students have
attended two modules in Palliative Care as part of their fourth year training. We offer
individual placements for final year students and our staff facilitate a workshop for them at
the University of Brighton in collaboration with other hospices.
Our consultants continue their commitment to postgraduate medical training, acting as
educational and clinical supervisors for the doctors who are on their specialty rotation with St
Catherine’s. Dr Brayden has had another busy year overseeing the London/KSS training
rotation as Programme Director, while Dr Gleeson oversees our locality training rotation and
continues as a member of the standard setting groups for the national specialty exam.
--oo0oo--
St Catherine’s Hospice Quality Account 2013/14
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