Introduced by NHS England in 2013, PLACE is an annual assessment which involves local people (known as Patient Assessors) visiting hospitals to review aspects of clinical care. This audit includes privacy and dignity, food, cleanliness, general building maintenance and, more recently, the extent to which the environment is able to support the care of those with dementia.
The results from this year’s PLACE were published in the late summer and paint a very encouraging picture for DBTH, with significant progress evidenced in all areas assessed. Impressively, the Trust managed to surpass the national average for each of the six standards and even emerged as the best-in-the-region for five of them:
- Cleanliness: 99.99% (national average: 98.47%)
- Condition, appearance and maintenance: 97.81% (national average: 94.33%)
- Dementia: 85.05% (national average: 78.89%)
- Disability: 88.39% (national average: 84.19%)
- Food and hydration: 90.20% (national average: 90.17%)
- Privacy, dignity and wellbeing: 85.78% (national average: 84.16%)
Moira Hardy, Director of Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health Professionals at DBTH, said: ‘’These results are a testament to the hard-work and diligence of our amazing staff. After all, it is only because of their inspiring work ethic and desire to continuously improve care quality that we have been able to achieve such great PLACE scores this year.
“Ensuring the hospitals in which we deliver care is as good as it can be is absolutely vital for any healthcare provider, which is why we take these assessments so seriously. While we recognise that there is still work to be done and improvements to be made, as an organisation we have made substantial strides forward, and for this I want to thank our team and look forward to further enhancements in the future.”