CQC has published a report on Locala Community Partnerships CIC, West Yorkshire following an inspection in October and November 2016.
Locala Community Partnerships CIC provides a range of GP services, community health, sexual health and dental care from 28 sites in West Yorkshire. CQC didn’t inspect all of these services at this inspection, only the following community health services:
- Community adults services (including end of life care)
- Community inpatient services
- Community dental services
- Community services for children, young people and families
CQC have not rated Locala Community Partnerships CIC as a provider following this visit because not all services were inspected and the organisation was not inspected on how well-led it was in relation to all of the services that it provides.
The full report including ratings for the organisation’s core services are available on our website.
The CQC’s key findings included:
- Safeguarding training rates were variable across services. A serious safeguarding incident in June 2016 highlighted that some staff in the community adults team had not recognised safeguarding concerns raised by patients. They did not know what action to take which resulted in a delay in taking appropriate action.
- Staffing levels were appropriate in the majority of services inspected. However, staffing shortfalls were a significant issue in the integrated community care teams.
- The majority of patients and relatives informed CQC they felt involved in care options, decision making and planned treatment.
- Patients were generally able to promptly access care and treatment. There were waiting lists for patients to access some services in the integrated community care teams and some visits were being delayed due to the staffing shortfalls.
- Inspectors saw good examples in the children’s service, of staff working well with external agencies.
- The youth offending nurses worked with the youth offending psychologist to identify young people with unrecognised mental health problems. This was instrumental in young people being diverted from custody to community programmes.
There were areas of poor practice where CQC have told Locala Community Partnerships CIC that they must make improvements, including:
- Ensure that incidents are correctly identified and reported. This includes making sure they investigated and reviewed, and learning from it is shared and embedded.
- The provider must ensure there are sufficient numbers of suitably skilled, qualified and experienced staff, taking into account the dependency level of patients.
- The provider must ensure that there are effective risk management systems in place so risks can be identified, assessed, escalated and managed.
- The provider must ensure that care plans developed and recorded are reflective of the patient’s needs, particularly on Maple Ward.
- In the community adults service, the provider must ensure that patients are prioritised and seen promptly based on clinical need.
Locala Community Partnerships CIC took the findings from the CQC report seriously and had begun to address them at the time of the inspection. They immediately reduced the number of beds on Maple ward to eight, to ensure that they were safely staffed and were able to introduce and embed new systems and processes. They have introduced a weekly meeting dedicated to service improvement and regularly reviewing the progress of their improvements.
They have also undertaken a review of capacity and demand within their integrated community care teams and are currently reviewing the model of district nursing to reflect this.
Ends
For further information please contact CQC Regional Engagement Officer Kerri James by email kerri.james@cqc.org.uk or by phone on 07464 92 9966.
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