England’s Chief Inspector of Hospitals has rated the services provided by Black Country Partnership NHS Foundation Trust as Good following an inspection by the Care Quality Commission.
The CQC inspected core services at the trust, which provides inpatient, community mental health and disability services across the Black Country and community healthcare services for children, young people and their families in Dudley, between 26 and 28 November 2019. As a result it is rated as Good overall as well as Good for being safe, caring effective, responsive and well led.
Black Country Partnership NHS Foundation Trust was previously inspected in August 2018 when it was rated as Requires Improvement and the trust board was told it needed to make a number of improvements.
CQC’s Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals (and lead for mental health), Kevin Cleary, said:
“We were impressed by the trust’s response to our previous inspection and found a number of improvements had taken place. This is why we are now able to change its rating from Requires Improvement to Good.
“Admission and discharge of patients was well planned, and patients were involved in decision about their care pathway.
“Staff worked together as a team to benefit patients. They supported each other to ensure there were no gaps in their care. The clinical team had effective working relationships with other departments within the trust external services outside the organisation.
“The trust operated collaboratively as a board, with executives and non-executive directors sharing responsibility and accountability for decision-making.
“The trust can be proud of how caring its staff are – we have rated all core services as Good for being caring. In all services, staff treated patients with compassion and kindness. They understood the individual needs of patients and supported them to understand and manage their care.
“While we found many areas of good practice across the trust, we also found some areas where the trust needed to make further improvements. We have highlighted these to the trust and its leadership is aware of what it needs to do to ensure those improvements take place.
“We will continue to monitor the trust and our inspectors will return at a later date to check on its progress. In the meantime everyone at the trust should be proud of what they have done to bring about the improvements which have resulted in the trust’s new rating.”
The trust has been told it must improve in some areas, including:
- Within acute wards for adults of working age and psychiatric intensive care units; the trust must ensure that all staff complete fridge and room temperatures and know what actions to take when temperatures are out of the normal recommended range.
- Within acute wards for adults of working age and psychiatric intensive care units; the trust must ensure that wards have the appropriate leadership in place.
- Within specialist community mental health services for children and young people; the trust must improve waiting times for patients to access treatment, and ensure patients are safely monitored whilst waiting for the interventions.
Black Country Partnership Foundation NHS Trust provides a range of inpatient and community mental health services to working age adults, older people and children. The trust provides services for people who live predominantly in the boroughs of Sandwell and Wolverhampton, with smaller services offered in Dudley and Walsall.
A team of inspectors, which included a variety of specialists and experts by experience, visited hospital wards and community based mental health services for this inspection.
Full inspection reports will be published on CQC’s website tomorrow and will be available via the following link: www.cqc.org.uk/provider/TAJ
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