Mental health hospital closed after CQC inspection

A privately run 10 bed mental health hospital in south-east London has closed down after a damning Care Quality Commission (CQC) report into the way it was operated.

The six strong inspection team visited Harcourt House in Canadian Avenue, Catford, over a three day period in February 2016.

The team comprised of three CQC inspectors, one CQC inspection manager, one pharmacist inspector and a specialist advisor. This specialist advisor was a consultant psychologist with experience in providing psychological treatments. The inspectors found Harcourt House, run by CarePlus Partnership was overall Inadequate in each and every area the CQC inspected.

Paul Lelliott, CQC’s Deputy Chief Inspector, Mental Health said:

“We decided to take action to cancel the registration of this service. However, the provider decided to close the service themselves and cancel their registration. This means the provider will no longer be able to operate the service at this location.”

A catalogue of regulation breaches were uncovered by inspectors. These included:

• Where patients were being restrained this was not being done safely
• The hospital did not report all serious incidents, and external organisations did not have a full understanding of what was happening to people being cared for in the hospital
• One patient had been locked in their room for several weeks. This was a breach of the patient’s human rights and amounted to mistreatment
• Risk assessments were not updated after incidents and staff could potentially not be aware of risks and how to support the patients safely
• The hospital was not kept clean or properly maintained
• Patients did not have access to appropriate psychological therapies
• Most staff had not received the specialist training needed to care for the people in the hospital
• There had been a systemic failure to assess, monitor and improve the safety, care and treatment of patients

CQC inspected this service as part of an ongoing comprehensive mental health inspection programme.

You can read the full report at www.cqc.org.uk/location/1-151660037

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