Airedale NHS Foundation Trust will shortly be undertaking the NHS England PLACE (Patient-Led Assessment of the Care Environment) programme for 2024 and is looking for volunteers to become patient assessors.
The programme involves local people (known as patient assessors) coming into hospital and working as a team to assess how the environment supports the provision of compassionate and safe care by looking at the following areas:
- Privacy and dignity
- Food
- Cleanliness
- General building maintenance (condition)
- How well the environment is supporting the care of patients with dementia or a disability.
PLACE assessments provide meaningful feedback on how the environment or services could be enhanced or improved and have a formal input into the Trust’s Environmental Action Group. The feedback also has real impact on our hospital and the experience of our patients and visitors.
The assessment teams are made up of Trust staff (lead assessors) and patient assessors, with patient assessors making up at least 50% of the assessment team.
Anyone who uses the Trust’s services can be a patient assessor, including current patients, their family and visitors, carers or patient advocates. NHS Foundation Trust governors can also be patient assessors.
The 2024 PLACE programme window is expected to take place between September and November 2024. There will be an online training session (lasting around 1.5 hours) provided beforehand. Dates and times to be confirmed.
The assessments will take place across a range of wards and departments and will last around 2-3 hours. You will be provided with travel expenses, refreshments and a meal voucher for participating.
If you are interested in becoming a patient assessor and would like to support Airedale with this year’s assessment, please download and complete this expression of interest form and email it to Anhsft.place@nhs.net by the end of August 2024.
If you have any questions, please do get in touch via the email address above.
