Chief Inspector of Hospitals rates Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust as Requires Improvement

England’s Chief Inspector of Hospitals has rated the services provided by Coventry and Warwickshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust as Requires Improvement following an inspection by the Care Quality Commission.

CQC inspected the core services provided by Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust - which provides mental health and community based health services - between 11 and 15 April 2016.

A team of inspectors, which included a variety of specialists and experts by experience, visited hospital wards and community based mental health services.

The CQC has rated the trust as Requires Improvement overall. It was rated as Good for being caring and Requires Improvement for being safe, effective, responsive and well-led.

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

“Our inspectors found the trust must make a number of improvements to bring its services up to a level that would earn a rating of Good overall. 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 we were concerned that the trust was not always doing all that it could to ensure that patients and staff were safe. Inspectors found a number of potential ligature points on wards. On one ward that we visited during our inspection, the patient call bells were not working.

“Our inspection also found long waiting times in some community services, with data showing young people in the children and adolescent mental health services had waited for between 24 weeks and over 49 weeks to access treatment.

“Despite these concerns, we found a number of areas of good practice across Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust. This included; staff having a good understanding of how to protect patients from abuse and they regularly completed safety and security audits of wards. Equipment on wards was well maintained and wards were clean, bright and airy.

"We also rated two services in community health services as being outstanding for caring. These related to end of life care and services for children and young people and families.

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

The CQC has told the trust it must take action in several areas, including:

The trust must review provision of inpatient beds to ensure compliance with the Department of Health guidance and Mental Health Act (MHA) 1983 Code of Practice regarding the elimination of mixed sex accommodation.

• The trust must remove identified ligature risks, ensure ligature risk assessments contain plans for staff to manage those risks and mitigate where there are poor lines of sight.
• The trust must ensure seclusion meets the MHA code of practice and provide clarity to staff about which seclusion rooms are in use.
• The trust must ensure qualifying patients are referred to support from an Independent Mental Health Act Advocate (IMHA).
• The trust must ensure there are enough staff on duty to meet the needs of the patients, that staff are given regular clinical supervision and receive training on the Mental Health Act (1983).
• The trust must ensure there is robust oversight and management of all risks within the community dental service.
• The trust must establish a clearly defined process to effectively manage the current waiting list in the community dental service.

Full reports for the trust will be published on CQC’s website today at the following link: www.cqc.org.uk/provider/RYG

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