Summary
Needs:
◊ To embrace a national quality standard for catering and domestic services
◊ To provide a benchmark for services
◊ To increase recognition
◊ To acknowledge the efforts of the team
Benefits:
◊ Improve quality
standards
◊ Improve leadership and
management skills
◊ Increase customer
loyalty
◊ Improve staff morale
◊ Generate great PR
◊ Develop service ideals,
values and principles that support a culture of excellence
Background
St Kentigern, situated in St Asaph,
is a palliative day care and eight-bedded in-patient unit, which
provides medical and nursing care for patients, together with
social, emotional and spiritual support for them and their
families. The need for a hospice was identified in 1986
and, after nine years of planning and fund-raising, the Day Unit
was opened in 1995 by Sir Anthony Meyer. In October 1999
work
commenced on the next phase, the building of an 8-bedded
residential extension, which opened in
December 2000.
The Hospice provides a range of services and non-curative
treatments by professionals working in palliative care. Up
to 15 patients per day attend the day care centre whilst the
in-patient unit caters for up to eight patients seven days a
week.
Patient care in St Kentigern Hospice is specially and
carefully designed to provide comfort and support to patients
and their families when a life-limiting illness no longer
responds to cure-oriented treatments. Hospice staff and
volunteers offer a specialised knowledge of medical care,
including pain management.
In 2003, the hospice was awarded the Queen’s Golden
Jubilee Award for Voluntary Services. The hospice was one
of only seven groups in Wales to receive the accolade, which
recognises the generosity, time and energy of volunteers in the
community.
Client Needs
Hospitality Assured, the Standard for
Service Excellence in the Hospitality Industry, was identified
as the model for benchmarking performance. The Hospitality
Assured process encourages businesses to look at their own
operation from the customer’s perspective and to see where
improvements should be made to benefit the business. This
is done by looking at how businesses score against the criteria
in the 10 step standard
Marilyn Gilligan, Head of
Catering and Domestic Services said “Hospitality
Assured provides the benchmark against which we can constantly
measure our performance. It ensures that we maintain
consistency in our approach whilst delivering the highest
standards and continuing to build on our excellent relationship
with our patients, their families, our staff and team of
volunteers. We pride ourselves on our attention to detail,
our responsiveness to the client’s needs and requests together
with our ability to deliver innovative concepts in this ever
changing retail/catering environment. We believe that this
status brings additional focus and reaffirms the quality of work
delivered to our client”.
Benefits
The assessors saw a level
of enthusiasm and commitment from the staff that was exceptional
and matched by the positive comments received from the many
means of capturing customer feedback. The score obtained
reflected the dedication amongst the team and the ways in which
they apply the processes and procedures to deliver a quality
service to their customer base. The boost to
morale for the catering and domestic team was immense.
Of particular benefit was the value of being externally
recognized as one of the best.
Catlow Consulting’s
Role
Catlow Consulting provided direction
and support to the catering and domestic team to prepare their
submission for external assessment against the Hospitality
Assured Standard. This included identifying how the
requirements of the standard applied to the Hospice, designing
the management system, assisting with the preparation of
documentation and document writing and coaching the team in
preparation for the external audit.