CQC’s Chief Inspector of Hospitals publishes his findings on the quality of care provided by South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust

12 June 2014

England's Chief Inspector of Hospitals has published his first report on the quality of care provided by South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust.

Overall, CQC found that the trust’s staff were caring and had a good approach to patient care. They interacted positively and compassionately with people using services, and much of the care delivered followed best practice guidance. Where no such guidance existed, staff were working with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to produce this.

There was a good working relationship between inpatient and community services, and inspectors saw good examples of people using services being engaged and involved in their care.

Inspectors found that, where people needed to be detained under the Mental Health Act, they were lawfully detained and had their rights read to them at the appropriate times, although some of the actions identified in the monitoring of the Act had not been completed by the trust.

The inspectors found a number of other areas of good practice, including:

• The Behaviour and Communication Support Service in Wandsworth and the Challenging Behaviour service in Sutton and Merton, which provided specialist outreach services to older people in residential and nursing homes. These interventions were proving effective in reducing the use of anti-psychotic medication.
• The Intensive Home Treatment Team in Sutton and Merton, which provided a specialist service to older people into the evenings and through the weekends and helped to avoid hospital admissions.
• Positive work was noted in ensuring that people could access services through the use of CAPA (Choice and Partnership Approach) with a single point of referral scheme and single point of access scheme.

Inspectors did, however, find some areas where the trust needed to make improvements.

Many of the staff working in older people’s services had not undertaken dementia training and this was having an impact on the quality of care.

Inspectors also said that the trust must improve in several other areas:

• Ensuring that planning and delivery of care always meets people’s individual needs, and supports their safety and welfare.
• Ensuring that suitable storage, recording and monitoring systems are in place to make sure that medications are handled safely and appropriately.
• Continuing to monitor the mixed gender wards across the service to ensure they comply fully with the national guidance.

Professor Sir Mike Richards, CQC’s Chief Inspector of Hospitals, said:

“South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust delivers vital services to a huge number of people across a wide geographical area in London, which is why it is so important that it delivers them well and is well-led.

“During the inspection, it was clear to us that the trust recognised the challenges it faced. We found that the board were a strong and effective group who understood their role and performed their duties well.

“While there are some areas where the trust needs to improve, we saw a team of committed staff who were caring and compassionate, and people using services were engaged and involved in their care.”

The trust, which operates from more than 100 sites and serves more than a million people across the London boroughs of Kingston, Merton, Richmond, Sutton and Wandsworth, was one of the first specialist providers of mental health services to be inspected under CQC's new approach to inspections.

An inspection team which included CQC inspectors and analysts, doctors, nurses, social workers, Mental Health Act commissioners, psychologists, patient experts by experience, other specialists and senior managers, visited Springfield Hospital, Tooting, Queen Mary’s Hospital, Roehampton, and Tolworth Hospital, Surbiton, in March.

The full reports can be found at: South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust.

ENDS

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