Spire Leeds Hospital

Updated 1 June 2020

Spire Leeds Hospital is operated by Spire Healthcare Limited and is a private hospital in north Leeds, West Yorkshire. The hospital primarily serves the communities of North and West Leeds, Ilkley in West Yorkshire, and Harrogate and surrounding areas in North Yorkshire. It also accepts patient referrals from outside this area.

The hospital opened in 1989 and has been under varied ownership during that time. Since 1 October 2007, the hospital has been in the ownership of Spire Healthcare Limited. The hospital has had a registered manager in post since 1 October 2005. The hospital director has been in post, at this site, since 2019.

The hospital is registered to provide the following relevant regulated activities:

• Treatment of disease, disorder or injury.

• Diagnostic and screening procedures.

• Management of supply of blood and blood derived products

• Surgical procedures

• Family planning

Updated 1 June 2020

Services we rate

Spire Hospital Leeds is operated by Spire Healthcare Limited. The hospital itself is set in landscaped grounds on the outskirts of Leeds with good travel links and off-street parking. The building was wheelchair accessible. The older part of the hospital was a listed building, and this was where, mainly, the administrative side of services were dealt with. All patient rooms on the wards were single with en-suite facilities and a TV. In addition, on the ground floor, there were ample consulting rooms for staff to use when pre-assessing patients. The oncology service had its own consulting room just down from the oncology suite. The oncology suite consisted of six chairs with pull around curtains.

We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology. We carried out the unannounced part of the inspection on 2 and 4 March 2020.

To get to the heart of patients’ experiences of care and treatment, we ask the same five questions of all services: are they safe, effective, caring, responsive to people's needs, and well-led? Where we have a legal duty to do so we rate services’ performance against each key question as outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate.

Throughout the inspection, we took account of what people told us and how the provider understood and complied with the Mental Capacity Act 2005.The main service provided by this hospital was surgery. Where our findings on surgery – for example, management arrangements – also apply to other services, we do not repeat the information but cross-refer to the surgery service level.

We rated the hospital as Good overall.

• Staff worked hard to ensure patients had a good experience while receiving care and treatment. Staff recognised and responded to the individual needs of patients through the whole patient journey from the first referral before admission to when they were discharged from the hospital.

• There was a visible person-centred culture. Staff told us this had greatly improved since the previous inspection and the culture now centred on openness and improvement of the patient experience. Staff were motivated and inspired to offer care that was kind and promoted people’s dignity. Relationships between people who used the service, those close to them and staff were caring, respectful and supportive. These relationships were valued by staff and promoted by leaders. Equipment and premises overall were well maintained and plans were in place to address any shortfalls. The hospital controlled infection risk well. Staff used an audit system to understand that policies were embedded. Staff ensured equipment and premises were clean. They used control measures to prevent the spread of infection.

• Staff completed and updated risk assessments for each patient. They kept clear records and asked for support from the multi-disciplinary team when necessary.

• The hospital planned and provided services in a way that met the needs of local people. It put peoples’ needs central to the delivery of tailored services.

• Opportunities to participate in benchmarking and peer review were proactively pursued, including participation in approved accreditation schemes.

• The hospital had enough staff with the right qualifications, skills, training and experience to keep people safe from avoidable harm and to provide the right care and treatment.

• Staff, teams and services were committed to working collaboratively and had found efficient ways to deliver more joined-up care to people who used services. For example, patients appointments were arranged over one day to reduce the number of visits they had to make.

• All staff we spoke with were proud of the organisation, the improvements that had been made across departments and in the management of the hospital as a place to work and staff at all levels were actively encouraged to speak up and raise concerns. There were high levels of satisfaction across all staff groups.

• Leaders at all levels demonstrated the high levels of experience, capacity and capability needed to deliver excellent, high-quality sustainable care. The hospital was led by managers who had the right skills and abilities and were compassionate, inclusive and effective.

• A new leadership team had quickly gained an understanding of issues, challenges and priorities in the service, and had prioritised actions to secure improvement. Leaders had a shared purpose and strived to deliver and motivate staff to succeed.

• Effective systems to identify risks, plan to eliminate or reduce them, and cope with both the expected and unexpected had been relatively recently implemented. Services demonstrated commitment to ensuring these were understood and implemented. Staff at all levels had the skills and knowledge to use the systems and processes effectively.

• There was a demonstrated commitment at all levels to sharing data and information proactively to drive and support internal decision making as well as system-wide working and improvement.

• Constructive engagement with staff and people who used services, including various equality groups was high. Services were developed with the full participation of those who used them. For example, the hospital worked with the Macmillan service and patients and their families who had experience of illness such as dementia.

However,

• The hospital should consider how it can improve the environment (including where relevant, the equipment) for the endoscopy service and the environment for the oncology service, which posed challenges in terms of privacy and dignity.

• Not all records of patient consultations in outpatients were legible and clear.

Ann Ford

Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals (North)

Updated 1 June 2020

Medical care was a small proportion of hospital activity. We rated this service as good. The safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led domains were rated as good.

Updated 1 June 2020

Children and young people’s services were a small proportion of hospital activity. We rated this service as good because it was safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led.

Updated 1 June 2020

Diagnostic imaging was a small proportion of hospital activity. We rated this service as good because it was safe, caring, responsive and well led.

We do not rate effective in diagnostic imaging.

Updated 1 June 2020

Outpatients services were a significant proportion of hospital activity. We rated this service as good because it was safe, caring, responsive and well led.

We do not rate effective in outpatients.

Updated 1 June 2020

Surgery was the main activity of the hospital. Where our findings on surgery also apply to other services, we do not repeat the information but cross-refer to the surgery section.

Staffing was managed jointly with medical care.

We rated this service overall good because we rated safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led as good.