PLACE 2017: What Our Volunteers Did
What is PLACE?
Patient-Led Assessments of the Care Environment (PLACE) are a self-assessment of a range of non-clinical services which contribute to the environment in hospitals, hospices and independent organisations providing NHS-funded care in England.
This type of assessment was introduced in April 2013 and is carried out annually. The aim is to focus on showing that what patients say matters. They are undertaken by a combination of patients – who make up at least half the team – the public and other bodies with an interest in healthcare (such as local Healthwatch) in partnership with the NHS Trust staff. The assessments use a range of criteria to identify how well the trust is performing and identifying areas for improvement.
Visits generally start at the beginning of March and end at the beginning of June, with NHS Trusts being given a specific time frame as to when a site visit must be completed by. Results from these audits are logged onto a national database which is then analysed and fed back to the Trusts and the public in August.
Healthwatch Hertfordshire volunteers support these visits. They are important to ensuring that there is a level of transparency and clarity of assessments across the Trusts used by Hertfordshire residents, and that other patient assessors on the visits feel supported to give full and honest feedback.
Our volunteers visited sites at:
Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust
Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust
East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust
West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust
Results can be found here. This is a breakdown of how all the trusts did in each area from 2013 to 2017 using a new interactive report system. You can also drill down to site and ward levels using the spreadsheets provided.
