Chief Inspector of Hospitals publishes report on the quality of care provided by Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust

England's Chief Inspector of Hospitals, Professor Sir Mike Richards, has published a report on the quality of care provided by Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust.

Under its inspection model, CQC gives individual ratings to each of the core services at NHS trusts and gives trusts an overall rating.

The CQC inspected the core services provided Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust between 19 and 23 January 2015. The trust provides community health and mental health services across Worcestershire (see our report for the full list of services inspected).

The CQC has rated the trust as ‘Requires Improvement’ overall. It has rated it as ‘Good’ for whether services are caring and well-led and as ‘Requires Improvement’ for whether services are safe, effective and responsive.

The CQC has told the trust to take action in the following areas:

• Staff working in mental health acute and rehabilitation wards must work to reduce the risks to patients from ligature points.
• The trust must take action to reduce blind spots on wards where CQC identified risks so that staff can observe patients in all parts of the wards. This was a particular concern on Harvington Ward.
• Staff must always assess patients’ capacity to consent to treatment to ensure that their human rights are respected.
• The trust must review its provision of crisis services for young people to make sure those using these services are assessed by appropriately skilled staff in a timely way.
• The trust must ensure that all medicines are properly recorded and stored safely and that all equipment is reviewed regularly and appropriately maintained.

However, across the community health services, we found overall, the services were delivered to a good standard, with the exception of patient safety concerns at some minor injury units.

We heard positive feedback from patients, and carers and we saw that treatment was delivered in a sensitive and dignified way.

CQC is aware that he trust has already started to make several of changes requested and is working to rectify all the issues raised by the inspectors.

The CQC inspection team did find areas of good practice, including:

• The stroke team had created an information pack for people who had suffered a stroke. The information pack contained three books in an easy to read format with pictures as visual aids.
• A pilot initiative in the Wyre Forest community mental health team had been successful in reducing referrals from GPs from 19% to 10% over a two year period.
• The early intervention lead for the trust led on a physical health project, called ‘SHAPE’ - through joint working with a local university - to support young people experiencing a first early psychosis through a physical health and wellbeing programme.
• A ‘Young Person’s Board’ had been created and was helping shape how the service was delivered throughout the children’s service.
• Community health inpatient wards demonstrated good multidisciplinary and integrated working which clearly placed the patient at the centre of care.

CQC’s Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals (and lead for mental health), Dr Paul Lelliott, said:

“Our inspectors found the trust must make some improvements to bring its services overall up to a level that would earn a rating of ‘Good’. We gave immediate feedback to the trust following the inspection and this report presents the detail of our findings, our ratings and our recommendations.

“In particular the trust must improve the quality and safety on Harvington Ward.

“As well as finding some areas for improvement, we also found a number of areas of good practice across Worcestershire Health Care NHS Trust. In particular we concluded staff in nearly all parts of the trust were caring and compassionate. 

“Community health services were delivered to a good standard, with the exception of patient safety concerns at some minor injury units. We heard positive feedback from patients and carers and saw that treatment was delivered in a sensitive and dignified way.

“CQC is aware that he trust has already started to make several of changes requested and is working to rectify all the issues raised by the inspectors.

“The trust leadership knows what it needs to do to bring about improvement and our inspectors will return at a later date to check on what progress has been made.”

Full reports for the trust have been published on this website.

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