The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has published a report following a focused inspection of the acute wards for adults of working age and psychiatric intensive care units at Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust, following an inspection in February.
This unannounced inspection took place to check whether improvements had been made following previous inspections in May, June and July 2021. At that time, CQC issued the trust with enforcement action, which required it to make significant improvements in some key areas including:
- making it easier for patients to call for help in an emergency
- ensuring that people no longer had to sleep in shared accommodation
- protecting patients’ privacy and dignity
Following this inspection, the overall rating for the acute wards for adults of working age and psychiatric intensive care units remains rated as requires improvement. However, safe improved from inadequate to requires improvement and responsive improved from requires improvement to good. Effective, caring and well-led were not re-rated as they were not included in this inspection.
Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust was not re-rated during this inspection so the previous overall rating of requires improvement remains.
Craig Howarth, CQC’s head of hospital inspection for mental health and community health services, said:
“I’m pleased to report that since our last inspection, leaders and staff have worked hard to improve the acute wards for adults of working age and psychiatric intensive care units at Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust.
“The trust has met the requirements of the enforcement action and the improvements resulted in improved ratings for the safety and responsiveness of the service. However, there is still more work to be done and we’ll continue to monitor the trust’s progress.”
Inspectors found:
- Across all wards at the Bradgate Mental Health Unit (BMHU), all patients had now been risk assessed for a wrist worn personal alarm, which could be used to call for help in an emergency. Where patients had declined an alarm, staff documented this decision.
- The trust had completed major environmental work to remove shared sleeping arrangements. Only one ward still had shared sleeping accommodation in place at the time of the inspection, but it was due to be refurbished imminently so all rooms would be single occupancy.
- Staff were aware of the need to protect patients’ privacy and dignity. Every bedroom door now had a permanent sign which reminded staff to knock before entering.
- Patients had sufficient space to store personal belongings. Every bedroom had a floor to ceiling wardrobe and a chest of drawers. Every patient had access to lockable storage and additional storage space in a separate room on the ward.
- Fixed alarms were now in place in toilets and bathrooms.
However:
- Staff had not consistently completed care plans in the electronic patient record system for those patients who wore wrist alarms.
- Staff did not test the wrist worn alarms or fixed room alarms regularly on all wards and record the outcome as per trust policy.
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