South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust has been rated Good overall by the Care Quality Commission.
The trust was rated Good for being effective, caring, responsive and well-led. It was rated Requires Improvement for being safe, following the inspection in April and May 2019. At a previous inspection the trust was also rated Good overall.
CQC inspected four services: Acute wards for adults of working age and psychiatric intensive care units; Community-based mental health services for adults of working age; Long stay/rehabilitation mental health wards for working age adults; and Perinatal services.
Inspectors found that the trust had worked hard to implement changes that were improving care. Considerable work had already taken place but there was more to do to deliver sustainable change.
The trust had a high calibre board, with a wide range of appropriate skills and experience, who were open and determined to continue making the necessary changes to provide high quality care to their local communities.
Since the last inspection, the directorate structures and borough-based working for local services had become more embedded. The directorate structures ensured clinical leaders had manageable spans of control. The numbers of matrons across the organisation had been increased to support teams to provide high quality care.
The board had improved oversight of operational issues. The governance processes had been strengthened with each directorate having a monthly quality and performance review.
The trust’s active participation in the South London Partnership was continuing to deliver new models of care for patients receiving national and specialist services. This meant that patients were receiving their care closer to home.
The trust was making progress with their quality improvement (QI) programme and had set ambitious targets for the next three years. At this inspection, most of the wards and teams we visited spoke with enthusiasm about the quality improvement projects that were taking place. There was focus on reducing violence and aggression for patients on inpatient wards.
Staff engagement remained a high priority for the trust. An ambitious programme of leadership walkabouts was continuing to promote good communication. This meant that the leadership team had a good understanding of the challenges being faced by staff working in front-line services and were working to address them.
The trust, since the last inspection had continued to develop and deliver an equalities strategy. There had been a focus on BME staff experience led by the BME staff network. The trust had plans in place to improve the workforce race equality standards through offering leadership development for BME staff; having BME staff on recruitment panels for all band seven posts and above.
Dr Paul Lelliott, Deputy Chief Inspector (and lead for mental health) said: “There is some very good care provided by South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and there have been improvements since our last inspection. There are some breaches of regulations and I’d like to see them addressed quickly.
“Patients are still affected by the ongoing extreme pressures on the acute care pathway. Bed occupancy remains above 100% on most wards, which meant staff might not have been able to manage the care of patients safely. There was not always a bed available for someone who needed one. The trust had placed 300 patients in out-of-area beds between February 2018 and December 2018”.
Please note you can read the report in full when it is published on CQC’s website at www.cqc.org.uk/provider/RV5
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