England’s Chief Inspector of Hospitals has upgraded the overall rating of 5 Boroughs Partnership NHS Foundation Trust from Requires Improvement to Good following an inspection in July this year.
During this inspection, the team looked at a number of specific areas where the trust had been rated as Requires Improvement during a comprehensive inspection in 2015.
The areas which were included as part of this focussed follow-up inspection at the community and mental health trust were: end of life care, mental health crisis services, adults’ inpatient wards and psychiatric intensive care unit, older people’s inpatient wards and forensic/secure inpatient wards. The full reports including ratings for the provider’s core services are available on this website.
5 Boroughs Partnership NHS Foundation Trust provides both community and inpatient mental health and learning disability services to people in five boroughs in the North West. Those boroughs are Halton, Knowsley, St Helens, Warrington and Wigan.
The Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals, Mental Health, Dr Paul Lelliot said:
“During our original inspection, we asked 5 Boroughs Partnership NHS Foundation Trust to make changes to improve the consistency of the care it provided across different wards. We found that their processes did not always identify shortfalls or variations in care, or learning from complaints and incidents.
“It is clear that changes have been implemented since February and this is reflected in the improved quality of care we found at this inspection.
“We came across numerous examples where patient outcomes and experience have improved since our last inspection, particularly for end of life care, and on the forensic inpatient ward at Hollins Park House.
“We saw that the trust had improved how it monitors and reports on the quality of the care it provides, with detailed, real time reports to the board meaning problems can be identified more quickly.
“We were impressed with the improvements we saw, and the staff at 5 Boroughs Partnership NHS Foundation Trust should be pleased with their enhanced rating. They have deserved it.”
Inspectors identified a number of areas where the trust had made improvements, particularly for their community end of life services, including:
- The trust had developed an end of life strategy and framework with an identified board lead.
- Staff felt supported and, particularly in end of life care, they were very positive about how the executive team had managed the concerns identified at the last inspection.
- The trust had taken effective action to meet the requirement notices issued by CQC following the inspection in July 2015.
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For further information, please contact Kerri James, CQC Regional Engagement Communications Officer by email kerri.james@cqc.org.uk or by phone on 07464 92 9966.
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We were impressed with the improvements we saw.
Dr Paul Lelliot, Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals, Mental Health