The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has published a report following an inspection which was part of a pilot on services for people with a learning disability or autistic people at Cygnet Woodside in Bradford.
CQC carried out a focused inspection of Cygnet Woodside in March to find whether improvements had been made after a previous unannounced focused inspection in September 2020. Following that September inspection, the hospital was rated inadequate and placed in special measures.
CQC had also imposed conditions on Cygnet Woodside. It was unable to accept any new people without written agreement from CQC, and managers had to provide regular reports on the improvements they had made.
Following this inspection, the overall rating remains as inadequate. The service was also rated inadequate for being safe, effective, well led and responsive, and rated requires improvement for being caring.
The provider has subsequently closed the hospital temporarily for refurbishment and all the people moved to alternative services by the end of May this year.
Debbie Ivanova, CQC’s deputy chief inspector for people with a learning disability and autistic people, said:
“During our inspection of Cygnet Woodside, we found that the improvements made since our previous inspection were not enough to ensure people were safe and receiving the best possible care.
“People were not always supported by staff who could meet and anticipate their caring needs. Also, there were not enough staff working at night, especially as the hospital had two floors and staff had to work between these. During our out of hours visit, we saw that two people went for significant periods of time without support.
“We found that people stayed at the hospital for a long time. This was even though the hospital website described it as an assessment, treatment and fast stream rehabilitation unit where people should only stay for short periods of time.
“When we saw staff spending time with people, they did receive kind and compassionate care and most relatives spoke highly of the regular, experienced staff and the care their loved one received.
“Following our inspection, the provider recognised the building was not fully fit for purpose and decided to close the hospital. It worked closely with people, their families and staff to find alternative services for people.”
Inspectors found:
- The hospital website states that it provided assessment, treatment and fast stream rehabilitation but most people had been at the hospital for long periods.
- People's needs were not fully met by the physical environment of the hospital. For example, the ward was noisy, the upstairs corridor lacked natural light and there was a lack of outside space. This meant that it was not suited or adapted to meet people’s needs, including their sensory needs.
- Staff did not monitor and evaluate each person’s outcomes meaningfully, review their support plan or adapt it where necessary. Each person’s programme did not offer sufficiently intensive learning opportunities to promote skills acquisition, support community inclusion and reflect planning for the future discharge.
- The support provided to people was not seamless across services and between professionals involved in the person’s life. People did not have access to the full range of multidisciplinary team members.
- The culture of the hospital did not fully support people using the service to lead confident, inclusive and empowered lives. The needs of people did not form the basis of the culture at the service to develop their skills to enable them to move out of hospital as soon as possible to live successfully and safely in the community. The provider’s systems and policies did not always support staff to provide care that was genuinely person-centred.
- Leaders of the service had made some improvements since the last inspection but this was not always fully effective and did not always consider how people’s quality of life could be fully promoted and how it fully had regard to ‘Right Support, Right Care, Right Culture’.
Full details of the inspection are given in the report published on our website.
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