The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has again rated the acute wards for adults of working age and psychiatric intensive care units (PICU) based at St James’ Hospital in Portsmouth as good following an inspection in September.
At the time of this inspection the service was run by Solent NHS Trust, which is now part of the newly formed, Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. This focused inspection was of the Maple Ward, which is a ten-bedded psychiatric intensive care unit.
This focused inspection was undertaken following an incident on the ward that resulted in a safeguarding enquiry and the ward voluntarily closing to new admissions.
CQC assessed Maple ward following the ward re-opening to new admissions and were assured that staff were always looking to improve people’s safety and learn from any incidents that did happen. Staff could also recognise safeguarding concerns and knew what actions to take to protect people.
At the previous inspection CQC found concerns with the safety of medicines management at the service and issued the trust with a warning notice. CQC found no concerns around medicines management at this inspection.
Following this inspection, as well as the service being rated as good overall, how well-led and safe the service is, has also been rated good. How effective, responsive and caring the service is, weren’t looked at as part of this focused inspection so remain rated as good from their previous inspection.
Inspectors also found:
- Staff had the skills needed to keep people safe.
- The ward was a suitable environment to provide care to people using the service.
- There were good systems in place to safely manage medicines.
- The service had processes in place to ensure they learnt from incidents.
- However, staff told us it was hard to find placements for people whose mental health had deteriorated after they were admitted and needed to be on a higher security ward. Senior managers in the trust were aware of these concerns and were working with local and national partners to address this issue.
The report will be published on CQC’s website in the coming days.
