Patient-Led Assessments of the Care Environment (PLACE), 2024 - England

The number of assessments of conducted and completed in 2024 was 1,107; 1 more than in 2023 (where 1,106 were undertaken). 14 assessments were excluded from the final results due to either being incomplete or not meeting mandatory patient assessor to staff assessor ratios. All further metrics are based on the remaining 1,093 assessments; of these, the number of “new” assessments undertaken by organisations joining the programme in 2024 was 107 (i.e., those undertaken at hospitals either not assessed in 2023 or assessed by a different provider) but this will have been inflated by organisational changes (e.g., mergers, name changes, hospital closures, change of purpose, transfer of services and sites between providers).

The PLACE collection is voluntary but is usually completed by all NHS Trusts with eligible sites; in 2024, 891 sites from 191 trusts completed valid PLACE assessments. The true number of independent/private healthcare providers eligible for the collection is unknown, but 202 sites from 46 organisations (based on EFM organisation type, rather than self-declared PLACE organisation type) provided PLACE data in 2024.

For single site organisations without inpatient facilities, we no longer provide an organisation score (as the assessment no longer includes the number of beds, and organisation scores are weighted by these). 

From 2019, organisation scores and national and commissioning region average scores are weighted by the number of inpatient beds; any sites which are without inpatient facilities are not included in these average calculations. This differs from previous PLACE calculations, where these sites were given a default value of 1 bed, which was used in the calculations of average scores. 

A comprehensive review was made of the PLACE programme following the 2018 collection. The 2019 established a new baseline, and scores are not comparable with any previously published. 

For the last two years we have enforced patient assessor minimums to provide more consistent reporting, but 2023 and 2024 results should not be compared with those from 2022 this earlier programme was heavily impacted by the covid-19 pandemic (so we received fewer completed assessments), further reduced by the need to enforce minimum patient assessor numbers.

For comparability of earlier PLACE results (2019 and before), please see the Data Quality Report published alongside the 2019 results, which is available here:

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/patient-led-assessments-ofthe-care-environment-place