PLACE Assessor

Patient led Assessors needed for (PLACE) Patient led Assessor Care of the Environment.

The Trust is requesting volunteers in the community to help with assessing our inpatient sites – please see an explanation below:

Patient led Assessors work as part of a team to look at the environment within our inpatient sites throughout the two counties. PLACE inspections run on different sites and we have a mixture of community sites, mental health sites and learning disabilities sites. 

We have some small sites which will take only a few hours of assessment and others sites which take up most of the day.

PLACE Assessment teams are a collaboration between staff and patient assessors, with patient assessors making up at least 50 per cent of the assessment team. Anyone who uses the service can be a patient assessor, including current patients, their family and visitors, carers, patient advocates or patient council members. NHS Foundation Trust Governors can also be patient assessors.

Staff working in a hospital cannot undertake assessments there as Patient Assessors, though they are able to act as Patient Assessors at hospitals in other NHS Trusts or elsewhere. Similarly those who have recently left employment in a hospital/Trust should not return as a Patient Assessor until a suitable period (normally two years) has elapsed.

Patient assessors are independent of the hospital being assessed and look at 6 domains:- Cleanliness, Condition Appearance and Maintenance, Privacy Dignity and Well being, Dementia, Disability and  Food and hydration.

As a PLACE assessor these assessments will  help to provide motivation for improvement by providing a clear message, directly from patients, about how the environment or services might be enhanced.

As an assessor,  one question to consider is -  “would you be happy if any members of your family or friends were using our facilities provided?” 

The time commitment for PLACE assessors (as well as the actual assessment) is a training session (beforehand) which would last for approximately 2 hours, dependent on the new criteria  set for the year by NHS Improvements.

If you are interested in getting involved as an assessor, could you please contact Kate Richards kathryn.richards3@nhs.net or Kim Kelly kim.kelly3@nhs.net who co-ordinates the assessors.