Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

On this page

• Overview
• Kindness, compassion and dignity
• Treating people as individuals
• Independence, choice and control
• Responding to people’s immediate needs
• Workforce wellbeing and enablement

The service provided compassionate, sensitive care to children, young people and their families. Patients and carers we spoke with were overwhelmingly positive about the staff and the experience of using the service. Carers and parents were active partners in their child’s care. Staff were flexible and creative when delivering care, including seeing children at school if they were reluctant to come into clinic. Staff worked well with partners to ensure patients received holistic care and treatment. Staff were always responsive to patient needs and operated a 2 tier nurse on-call system to ensure patient needs could be met in a timely manner. Staff felt supported by management and managers showed a genuine interest in staff wellbeing.

This service scored 100 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

We spoke with 1 young person and 3 carers they were overwhelmingly positive about their whole experience of the service. They told us “Staff were amazing and always went the extra mile”. One parent told us the team had kept their child “out of hospital for 8 years”, another told us all the staff were “amazing” and they “felt like they had respite every day” as their child was so well cared for at school.

We saw 26 samples of written feedback from families regarding the care their child had received all were overwhelmingly positive and contained numerous quotes and thanks from children, young people, and families.

We saw children, young people, and their families were respected and valued as individuals and were empowered as partners in their care by an exceptional and distinctive service.

Staff described how they always considered privacy and confidentiality as well as emotional wellbeing when caring for children, young people and families.

We saw several examples of immense gratitude and invitations for staff to attend the funerals of children who had sadly died whilst receiving end of life care.

We spoke with 3 carers, who told us they were active partners in their child’s care. Staff always empowered them to have a voice and support their child to realise their potential. They would definitely recommend the service to others who needed it, and they could not say enough good things about them.

Staff told us individual preferences and needs were always reflected in how care was delivered, and this was recorded the patient’s care plan. Staff recognised that parents needed to have access to, and links with, support networks in the community and they supported people to do this. They showed determination and creativity to overcome obstacles to delivering care, for example seeing children whilst they attended school when parents were reluctant to attend clinics. We saw people’s individual preferences and needs were always reflected in how care was delivered, for example providing telephone advice lines and drop-in sessions for ad hoc queries. The training team worked alongside the community nursing team and other agencies, such as specialist nurses, foster carers and therapy teams, to enhance the service that families received. Their aim was to ensure children and young people with additional healthcare needs received safe and effective care, wherever they were.

Staff actively sought the views of children, young people and families.

Feedback was genuinely appreciated, and learning was shared with staff, patients and families.

Staff facilitated a regular young person’s involvement group which contributed to any service developments.

Staff told us they always took individual likes and needs into consideration, for example place of death preferences within the end-of-life pathway.

We also saw examples where young people had requested text messages instead of emails or letters regarding their appointments.

We spoke with the transitional lead for the service, who provided a comprehensive, consistent approach to young people aged 14 and above. Their focus was to work with young people and agencies in preparation for adulthood and a robust transfer of care into adult services if required.

There was strong, visible person-centred culture, we saw staff considered each person's life experience, age, gender, culture, heritage, language, beliefs, and identity.

We saw a 2 tier nurse call system system in operation to ensure timely support for families. Parents we spoke with told us staff were always responsive and available if they needed help or advice.

We looked at 10 patient care and treatment records, all held comprehensive information of how to contact the team and other agencies if required.

We spoke with the rapid response lead; they explained how they worked with families to avoid admissions wherever possible.

Staff worked with bereaved parents giving them an option in using cooling blankets, which enabled them to spend time with their baby once they had passed away at home.

Staff told us they helped children, young people and their families to produce a symptom management plan to anticipate and formulate actions to manage their condition.

Staff we spoke with told us the local managers always “checked in” with them every day and were always visible and available should they require help and support. Staff spoke with great pride and satisfaction about the work of the team and their contribution to providing such a well-regarded service to children, young people and families.

Managers showed a genuine interest in the wellbeing of their staff. They told us about team building and networking days and about innovative low or no cost activities to support wellbeing. These included an afternoon of board games, a walk in the countryside, a game of rounders and a quiz. Staff told us they really appreciated the sincere emphasis of the importance of staff wellbeing.

The service also had produced an informal wellbeing messaging channel whereby staff could share information, anecdotes and hints and tips about keeping well.