The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has published a report following an inspection of the services provided by Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust.
CQC carried out an unannounced inspection in May of the acute wards and psychiatric intensive care units, mental health wards for older people, and crisis and health-based places of safety.
Following this inspection, there remained areas that required improvement in the acute wards and psychiatric intensive care units. CQC issued a warning notice to the trust due to significant concerns regarding these services and they kept their previous rating of inadequate.
It also rated two services as requires improvement; mental health wards for older people and the crisis and health-based places of safety.
Overall, the trust has been rated requires improvement, which is an improvement from when it was rated inadequate overall in 2020. It was also rated requires improvement for being safe, responsive, effective and well-led. It was rated good for being caring.
To support the trust, NHS England and Improvement have recently placed the trust into segment 4 of their Systems Oversight Framework and it will receive a package of support through the national Recovery Support Programme.
Brian Cranna, CQC’s head of hospital inspection for mental health, said:
“At this inspection, we were pleased to see that the trust had made some improvements since the last inspection, and so the overall rating has improved from inadequate to requires improvement, although more improvements are needed to keep people safe.
“During this inspection we remained concerned about the environments on the acute wards. The wards were not well maintained, they contained blind spots and not all risks had been appropriately managed to reduce the risk of people harming themselves. We were pleased that the trust had plans in place to renovate these wards to improve safety.
“We found that not all wards had enough staff who knew patients well and were able to care for them safely. A significant number of agency staff were also not trained in the trust’s restraint techniques.
“It was however reassuring to see staff providing, in most services, kind and compassionate care. People who used the services told us that staff were good listeners and provided good care.
“Since our last visit, the trust has made changes to its leadership team, who are aware of the areas of concern and have acted upon these to reduce risk. The trust has a number of revised strategies and improvement plans in place to continue to make further improvements.
“We will continue to monitor the trust, to ensure more changes are made and embedded in order to keep people safe and receive the care and treatment they deserve."
Actions the trust must take to improve:
- Ensure that effective, embedded and sustainable governance and risk management processes are in place to assess, monitor and improve the quality of services
- Ensure that the statutory and delegated safeguarding functions are carried out effectively and robust reporting, governance processes and oversight is in place
- Ensure that incidents and safeguarding issues are reported and investigated in line with the trust’s processes and national guidance
- Ensure that complaints are responded to in a timely manner via a process accessible to patients and staff and that they are used for processes of feedback and learning
- Ensure that care is provided in accommodation which is suitable, safe, clean, private and dignified. Ensure that staffing levels are adequate for the service being provided
- Ensure that there is oversight and management of the training and skills held by agency staff
- Ensure that the risks posed by unstable information technology systems are addressed and mitigated and that there is a continuation at rapid pace of plans to replace them
- Ensure that engagement with patients and carers and involvement in their care is strengthened
- Ensure they assess and mitigate the risks posed by the organisational culture and the management of risks relating to closed cultures in services
- Ensure that there is improved governance and oversight of practices and policies in place for monitoring the Mental Health Act
- Ensure that there are improvements in the timely completion of serious incident reports
- Ensure that digital and information technology systems are fit for purpose.
Full details of the inspection are given in the report published on our website.
For enquiries about this press release please email regional.engagement@cqc.org.uk.
Journalists wishing to speak to the press office outside of office hours can find out how to contact the team here (Please note: the duty press officer is unable to advise members of the public on health or social care matters).
For general enquiries, please call 03000 61 61 61.