Tunbridge Wells care home awarded Platinum status for End of Life Care

Halliwell, in Tunbridge Wells, completes Gold Standard re-accreditation, and is awarded highest status for all-round excellence in End of Life care

Halliwell, in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, part of the Elizabeth Finn Homes group, has just completed their re-accreditation with the National Gold Standards Framework (GSF) Centre in End of Life Care, and as a result of their continued excellent performance, have been awarded the prestigious Platinum status, which is held by only a handful of care homes in the UK.

To qualify for accreditation, care homes must have undertaken the full GSF training programme over 9 months, embedded this into their homes for at least 6 months and then undertaken a rigorous accreditation process ‘Going for Gold’.

The accreditation process includes assessment against 20 clear standards of best practice and a Quality Assessment Visit to review the integration of the processes into everyday practice.

To be recognised as a beacon (the highest level), a home must show innovative and established good practice across at least 12 of the standards. Halliwell achieved a pass in every single category, and was marked as Excellent in three of them.

GSF wanted to celebrate the sustained excellent practice of care homes that have embedded GSF in their core working practices. In acknowledgment of this, homes that achieve re-accreditation will now be known as GSF Platinum homes.

An extract from the report reads:

“(The) Leadership team are passionate about GSF and ensuring that residents and their loved ones get high quality care from the minute they have contact with the home to bereavement. The passion from the team is reflected in the passion of the staff.”

Gillian Forsyth, General Manager of Halliwell comments:

“We are delighted that the consistent hard work, caring and dedication of all the staff at Halliwell has been recognised with our Platinum award. We constantly seek to give our team the fullest support and this is reflected in the stability of our team and the number of staff with a long service record.”

Liz Clements, Elizabeth Finn Homes’ Palliative Care Lead comments:

“Across the entire portfolio of ten properties, Elizabeth Finn Homes has always sought to fully embrace excellence in End of Life Care. Along with dedicated Group resource, each of our General Managers and all of our staff are constantly seeking to maintain very high standards, this achievement at Halliwell fully evidences this.”