The Children and Adolescent Mental Health Service wards (CAMHS), part of Priory Ticehurst House, in Wadhurst, East Sussex, have been rated Inadequate following a Care Quality Commission inspection.
Inspectors visited Keystone and Upper Court wards as part of a focused inspection in response to concerns raised from families, external agencies and members of the public. These included poor staffing levels, high use of agency staff, poor medicines management, the number of incidents and staff training. It was rated Inadequate for being safe and well-led, following an inspection in September 2019.
The ratings for other services provided at The Priory Ticehurst House remain unchanged.
In Upper Court action had not been taken to reduce the environmental risks Priory had identified in January 2019. There was a lack of preventative action to avoid recurrence of incidents.
There had been a gradual increase in incidents of challenging behaviour involving physical restraint since April 2019. Data provided by the service showed that most incidents occurred after 6pm. The overall governance of incidents was inadequate, including a lack of management review, inconsistencies in information recorded and inaccurate recording of risk levels. Staff said that learning from incidents was not shared. Staff morale on Upper Court ward was low. Some staff said they felt unable to raise concerns without fear of retribution
The young people receiving care at the time of our inspection said they were bored and that little or no activities took place outside of school hours.
Kevin Cleary, CQC’s Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals (and lead for mental health), said:
“The CAMHS care provided at Priory Ticehurst House fell well below the standard that children and young people should expect. We identified several serious problems regarding the quality of care and safety that needed immediate attention.
"At time of the inspection, staff lacked an understanding of what was required to provide a good quality service to children and young people who require a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service.”
“At the time of the inspection the service was issued with a Warning Notice which required the provider to make some immediate improvements. Inspectors returned to carry out an unannounced inspection on 12 December to see if the provider had made the required improvements. They found the provider had put in place some improvements to its systems and processes to manage risks and incidents.
“The provider was also taking action to reduce the environmental risks on Upper Court. They had updated the ligature risk assessment for Upper Court. Some ligature risks had been removed and action had been taken to mitigate other potential ligature risks. CQC were satisfied that the provider had met the requirements of the warning notice.”
“It will take time for the improved processes to demonstrate the sustained improvements but we will continue to monitor the hospital closely. If we find improvements are not fully embedded and sustained we will not hesitate to take any further action required.”
The report will be available to read in full once it is published on CQC’s website at: www.cqc.org.uk/location/1-127132351
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