Report on Thomas Young Ward at St George’s Hospital
What we did
Healthwatch Wandsworth has the statutory authority to visit local health or social care services, using trained Enter and View volunteers, with the main focus on service users’ and carers’ experience of care.
With St George’s Hospital being a key hospital for residents of the Borough of Wandsworth its delivery of services and patient experience remain a high priority for local people and consequently was chosen as the site for this visit.
We came to an agreement that looking into the patient experience of the stroke pathway at St George’s Hospital would serve as a good focus and help build upon the national Stroke Patient Reported Experience Measure Survey (PREMs) from 2022/23.
Within this pathway we chose to focus on the experience of Thomas Young Ward which serves as the Acute Stroke Unit at St George’s for Wandsworth, and also includes the Wolfson Acute Neurorehabilitation Unit.
We conducted two visits to Thomas Young Ward, the first of which on 16th July 2024 was to familiarise ourselves with the ward. In our second visit on 13th September 2024, we spoke with nine patients on the ward as well as the family members of one of these patients. We used a semi-structured interview with a set of prompts covering various topics around patient experience.
What we found
Positive patient experience of staff and care
Respondents were generally very satisfied with the dignity and respect shown to them by staff and were confident in the care they were receiving.
Patient knowledge and involvement in medical/nursing care plan
One theme that emerged from a number of our interviews was an absence of understanding or knowledge on the patient’s part around their individual medical/nursing care and in particular a lack of awareness of the existence of a care plan. This was in contrast to their rehab therapy plan which the majority felt well informed about and of which they had a timetable printout.
Our recommendations
We made the following recommendations for improvements:
Enhanced communication and information for patients during their time on the ward
- Wider distribution of patient information booklets
- Alternative formats for patients who cannot read the booklets
- Regular provision of the medical/nursing care plan
- More visible location of whiteboard information for bedbound/less mobile patients
- Clearer information to patients on discharge planning process
Further patient involvement and the collection of feedback
- Consider the possibility of a peer support group for patients
- Interim feedback from longer stay patients
Details of these recommendations can be found in our full report below.
Head of Nursing for Neurosciences Catherine Chambers' Response
"We are pleased to see that the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. We work to ensure our facilities meet the needs of our patients, their families and carers, and our staff. We are also extremely proud of our services on Thomas Young Ward. Thomas Young Ward consists of two rehabilitation teams, the Acute Stroke Rehabilitation and the Neurorehabilitation team. On Thomas Young ward patients receive highly specialised , high quality, safe, efficient and sustainable rehabilitation care.
“We would like to thank Healthwatch Wandsworth for conducting this review of our rehabilitation service. In terms of feedback on areas for improvement, we are actively working with colleagues and other stakeholders to continue to make our services the best they can possibly be for patients and their families.”
You can read the full response in the report below.
