England’s Chief Inspector of Hospitals has rated the services provided by Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust as Good overall following an inspection by the Care Quality Commission.
CQC inspected the core services provided by Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust over five days in April 2017 and found a number of improvements had taken place since it was last inspected. The previous inspection, in March 2015, had resulted in the trust being rated as Requires Improvement.
A team of inspectors, including a variety of specialists and experts by experience, visited the trust’s core services. They rated the care provided by staff to be Good regarding whether services were safe, caring, responsive, well-led and Requires Improvement for whether services were effective.
CQC’s Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals (and lead for mental health), Dr Paul Lelliott, said:
“Overall, we concluded that Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust now provides good care to the population that it serves. We found that the trust had responded positively to the changes we asked it to make following our last inspection and we noted improvements in most of its core services."
“Throughout the trust we saw staff treating patients with kindness, dignity and respect. Staff were helpful and understanding and used kind, supportive language that patients understood. They encouraged patients to give feedback about their care, and provided people with information in easy read formats to help them access further support where needed."
“Since our last inspection, the trust has worked to reduce the risks to patients on the wards who might harm themselves. Staff were now more aware of the risks in the ward environments and re-assessed these regularly. On inpatient wards, staff had quick access to ‘heat maps’ to assist the safe management of patients at high risk of self-harm or suicide."
“However, although there had been significant progress at the trust, it had not fully addressed all of our previous concerns and we have highlighted areas where the trust needs to make further improvements. This includes that all inpatients must have discharge and care plans to meet their needs and that staff have regular supervision and appraisals."
“The trust knows what it must now do to ensure further improvements are made and we are confident that the executive team, with the support of their staff, will work to deliver these on behalf of all of their patients. We will return in due course to check on the progress that they have made.”
Several areas of good practice were highlighted during CQC’s inspection, including:
- Volunteers regularly visited inpatient wards for older people with therapy dogs. This gave comfort to patients, particularly those who had been dog owners and offered a source of conversation. The inpatient ward for children and young people had a therapy dog as a member of the team. We heard about examples from patients and staff of how the dog defused and de-escalated situations. Community teams for children and young people had also introduced an animal assisted therapy service.
- On long stay rehabilitation wards, at Discovery House, there was a patient run café which recently employed a previous patient in a paid role. The service offered a range of temporary paid job opportunities for patients. These included gardening and car valet roles.
- The crisis and home treatment teams had good working relationships with the police and the trust was arranging for staff to be based, out of hours, with the police to signpost patients to mental health services quickly.
- Staff in community services for children and young people had established an “outcomes oriented child and adolescent mental health service (CAMHS)” model of care that had been recognised in NHS innovation awards. Other child and adolescent mental health services nationally had adopted this model. The service had developed a large crisis and home treatment team, which offered provision for assessment and support 24 hours a day.
- The psychiatrist working for the forensic secure inpatient ward had developed an IT application for use by staff to access information on National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines on the wards.
Inspectors said that the trust must improve in some areas, including:
- The trust must ensure that all patients nursed in seclusion have a seclusion care plan.
- The trust must ensure that all inpatients have a discharge care plan and care plans to address their physical healthcare needs.
- The trust must ensure all staff are in receipt of regular clinical and management supervision and that accurate records are kept on these.
Full reports including ratings for all of the provider’s core services are available on our website.
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