The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated Somerset NHS Foundation Trust as good overall following a recent inspection.
Somerset NHS Foundation Trust (SFT) is the first NHS trust on the English mainland to provide community, mental health, and acute hospital services. The trust was formed with the formal merger of Somerset Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust which took place on 1 April 2020.
Inspectors visited the trust in September to assess three core services:
- acute wards for adults of working age and psychiatric intensive care unit (PICU)
- community end of life care services
- specialist community mental health services for children and young people
Following the inspection, specialist community mental health services for children and young people (CAHMS) has improved from requires improvement to outstanding. The service was rated outstanding for responsive and caring, and good for safe, well-led and effective. Previously the service was rated requires improvement overall, good for caring and effective, and requires improvement for safe and well led.
Acute wards for adults of working age and psychiatric intensive care unit (PICU) retained its previous rating of good overall. It also retained its good rating for being effective, caring responsive and well-led and requires improvement for being safe.
Community end of life care services remained good overall and for being effective, caring, responsive and well-led. Safe has improved from requires improvement to good.
Overall, the trust has been rated as good with effective, responsive and well-led also being rated as good. Safe was rated as requires improvement and caring was rated as outstanding.
Deanna Westwood, CQC Director of Operations - South Network:
“It’s a remarkable achievement to merge trusts at the beginning of a national pandemic and yet Somerset NHS Foundation Trust have continued to maintain the good quality of service that we had come to expect from both Somerset Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust
“During a period where children and adolescent mental health services are more needed than ever, the trust had adapted new ways to work with schools and other agencies to provide early support which in turn helped reduce waiting lists for those needed urgent support.
“This inspection found that the trust was well-led but the leadership team acknowledged there is still further work to be do. I’m confident that the leadership team will be able to implement the further improvements required but also sustain those changes already made.”
Inspectors found:
Staff treated people with compassion and kindness, respected their privacy and dignity and understood people’s individual needs. Services were inclusive, took account of people’s’ preferences and their individual needs. People had their communication needs met and information was shared in a way that could be understood.
As the trust approached the forthcoming merge with Yeovil District Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, the director of pharmacy had developed a pharmacy transformation programme to move towards integration of all pharmacy services across Somerset and to improve collaboration.
The CAMHS teams had implemented a number of strategies to decrease waiting times to access the service. This included working in partnership with voluntary sector organisations. Efforts over the past four years have resulted not only in achieving a no wait list for children and young people to access the service, a decrease in referrals. This meant reduced caseloads for staff and also better outcomes for those who did not meet the criteria to access the service.
In community end of life care staff understood the emotional and social impact that a person’s care, treatment or condition had on their wellbeing and on those close to them. Staff found ways to ensure people were able to see their loved ones and stay in touch with them, particularly when visiting on hospital wards had been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. An example of this was when the wife of a person was moved to the same ward to ensure they could spend more time together.
However, inspectors also found:
In acute wards for adults of working age and psychiatric intensive care units, there were potential ligature anchor points, but action plans were not developed on how to lower risks to keep people safe.