Hospital wins excellent ratings

THE standard of hospital food and privacy and dignity for patients has been rated as excellent at Warrington Hospital.
Ratings released by the National Patient Safety Agency as part of the latest national Patient Environment Access Team (PEAT) annual assessments also show that Halton General Hospital and Houghton Hall are also rated as excellent.
PEAT is an annual assessment of inpatient healthcare facilities in England. Teams inspect standards across a range of patient services including food, cleanliness, infection control, and patient environment.
Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust involved local patient representatives to ensure the assessments reflect patient views.
Warrington Hospital, Halton General hospital and the Houghton Hall intermediate care facility in Orford all scored the top mark of “excellent” for quality of food and the privacy and dignity offered to patients.
The food score looks at choice and quality of food and is judged on a range of factors from menu choices to taste and presentation. The privacy and dignity score looks at aspects like sleeping accommodation, bathrooms and shower facilities for patients and changing facilities.
Houghton Hall also scored excellent on the overall environment while both Warrington Hospital and Halton General scored the second highest rating of good for the environment.
The environment score looks at general standards of décor and tidiness across hospital sites as well as aspects such as signage.
Mike Atkinson, head of patient services at the Trust, said:
“These are very good results, which were verified by patient representatives we invited to take part in the inspections and external validators. With the wide range of issues covered, praise must go to all of the staff who have worked hard and contributed to the scores.
“Houghton Hall scored excellent across the board which is exceptional for a recently opened unit. With the single rooms and high standards of customer care, this new facility also scored well on privacy and dignity and had a very homely feel.
“Feedback from patients showed that Warrington Hospital has improved substantially on cleanliness, and received a lot of praise for new facilities such as the intensive care unit. The quality of the food was also supported by the scores on privacy and dignity which we are very pleased about and show the high standards we are putting in place for our patients.”
The full national results show that of all 1,265 healthcare sites rated, 58 per cent scored excellent on food and 44 percent scored excellent on privacy and dignity this year. 24 percent scored excellent on environment with 60 percent scoring as good.