Patient-led assessments of the care environment (PLACE)
Today Jane Cummings, Chief Nursing Officer for England, has written to NHS leaders introducing the new system for assessing the quality of the hospital environment from April 2013. Patient-led assessments of the care environment (PLACE) is the new system for assessing the quality of the hospital environment, which replaces Patient Environment Action Team (PEAT) inspections from April 2013. PLACE assessments will apply to all hospitals delivering NHS-funded care, including day treatment centres and hospices.
PLACE assessments put patient views at the centre of the assessment process, and use information gleaned directly from patient assessors to report how well a hospital is performing in the areas assessed – privacy and dignity, cleanliness, food and general building maintenance. It focuses entirely on the care environment and does not cover clinical care provision or staff behaviours.
The assessments will be undertaken annually, and results will be reported publicly to help drive improvements in the care environment. The results will show how hospitals are performing nationally.
Most importantly, patients and their representatives will make up at least 50 per cent of the assessment team, which will give them the opportunity to drive developments in the health services they receive locally.
For more information you can read the letter in full (the letter is now available on our archived website).
One comment
Anon patient.
Can I respond to your post in the order you put them so you don’t get confused about which potion I’m talking about ?
1.Shouldn’t we as patients expect to get the best care from the start and if you feel your not getting that isn’t it your right to voice complaints and your right to expect the best care not only reasonable care?
2. you ask how as a patient knows what care they are entitled to, see my answer above the patient should expect to get the very best treatment without the need to question ?
3.Isn’t it the right of every patient to ask anything about their care ?
4. I don’t see the point of this question the patient doesn’t have to know how much he/she can use because it should be they get what they need without question it’s for other people to question the resources.
5. You said, You know as well as I do that a lot of this is driven by personal ability and doctor -patient dynamics…al of which is of course discriminatory vs those less able to know what to ask for and take responsibility for how they get the most from their docs.
Isn’t the whole theory of the new patient led drive to in-power those patients who have found it hard to be heard and to create a forum were patients will know what and where to say it, .
In a nut shell embrace the changes embrace the patients ability to make there voices heard remember it’s better to have a voice on the inside than be shouting from outside.