Enter and view: Womens Services, Leeds

The aim of the visits was to find out about patient experiences in relation to referral and admission, information and communication, care and help and food and drink. 5 visits were carried out on Mondays and Thursday (busiest days) and 41 people spoken with. The visits comprised of making observations and carrying out surveys with individual patients/relatives on the day.

Key Findings

• Visit teams were impressed with the overall environment of the department.

• Communal areas were found to be clean, tidy and maintained to a high standard.

• Concerns about the cancellation of procedures: how and when this was shared with patients.

• 50% who had their procedure cancelled were happy with how they had been informed.

• Good levels of satisfaction with information and communication both before attending the department and during their visit/stay.

• Issues highlighted for non-English speaking people or people who had other communication needs.

• The vast majority of patients felt they were treated with respect by staff and praise for the high levels of care given.

• Concerns were raised by inpatients about the availability of hot food and variety of food available.

Key recommendations / messages

• Consider implementing a system to ensure that when procedures are cancelled, patients are given as much notice as possible.

• Information and Communication methods should be reviewed to ensure they consistently meet the needs of all patients including those with different access requirements including access to translators.

• Hot food is made available to patients staying overnight on the ward and this to include a range of options to suit dietary requirements.