Warwickshire's NHS Trust rated as good following inspection

Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust provides both mental health and community health services. CQC inspected the core services provided by in September and October 2018.

A team of inspectors, which included a variety of specialists and an expert by experience, visited hospital wards and community based mental health services.

Inspectors found improvement at the trust.

They rated it as 'good' for being effective, caring, responsive and well-led but also said that it requires improvement for being safe.

This means that the CQC has improved the rating of three key questions (effective, responsive and well led) from 'requires improvement' to 'Good' since it last inspected the trust in 2017.

CQC’s Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals (and lead for mental health), Dr Paul Lelliott, said:

“Our inspectors found that the trust has made a number of improvements since their last visit in June 2017 and, as a result, our overall rating for the trust and those in three of the key questions we ask, have improved.

“We found kind and caring staff who were committed to doing their best for the people using the trust’s services.

"We also found a number of outstanding areas of practice.

"This included the trust campaign to encourage men to talk about their mental health, palliative care and services for older adults in the community.

“There were some areas where the trust needs to make further improvements - we have highlighted these to its leadership.

"This includes medicines management across the trust.

"Although the trust had introduced new processes and equipment with regard to storing medicines since our last inspection, this had not yet resulted in consistent practice in all services.

“Some wards did not have sufficient regular staff to meet the needs of patients.

"This sometimes resulted in activities and leave being cancelled, but the trust had recognised this and had taken action to improve recruitment and retention of staff.

“We were pleased to find that the quality of leadership at the trust had improved and was now more cohesive. The trust had also worked with and learned from other NHS trusts to develop a culture of quality improvement, which was excellent to see.

“The trust leadership and its staff have worked hard to ensure a number of improvements were made in the time since CQC’s last inspection and they are to be congratulated for this. There is still work to be done to ensure further improvement takes places and that this is embedded and maintained, however. The trust knows what it needs to do now and our inspectors will return at a later date to check on what progress has been made.”

The commission also found a number of examples of outstanding practice at the trust.

It found that the trust continued to promote and support the campaign to raise awareness of men’s mental health, called ‘It Takes Balls to Talk’.

Started in the trust by an employee, the campaign had the support of organisations including nationally recognised sports club from rugby and football.

The campaign won the regional healthier communities award in the NHS 70 Parliamentary awards.

Palliative care support workers and support sisters were extremely knowledgeable about the sensitive and dignified way in which a patient should be cared for once they died.

Support workers told us they continued to call patients by their name and informed them of what they were going to do.

For example, when they repositioned a body.

Dignity and privacy remained a priority of staff once a patient had died.

Pembleton and Stanley wards were involved in a pilot scheme to install infrared sensors in some patient bedroom.

The sensors detected changes in patients’ movement and vital signs.

The technology aimed to support staff to changes in patients’ vital signs

There had been a reduction in falls since the technology was introduced.

In community based mental health services for older people, feedback from carers on the dedication, skills of individual staff they were in contact with was overwhelmingly positive.

There were frequent references to staff ‘going the extra mile’ and the service being ‘a life saver’.

The CQC has told the trust it must take action in a number of areas, including:

* The trust must ensure that staff participate in essential training for example, Mental Capacity Act, Mental Health Act and safeguarding level 3.

* The trust must ensure that all equipment in use is fit for purpose and is within the expiry date. The service must ensure there is an effective process for monitoring the regular testing all clinical equipment in line with policy.

* The trust must ensure that changes are made to the seclusion room to prevent the risk of injury to patients and staff.

* The trust must ensure they have effective systems in place to check that all issues relating to the management of medication including room, fridge temperatures and the administering of medications is safe.

* The trust must ensure they continue to address the staffing issues so that wards can operate in a way that is safe for both staff and patients.

The trust's chief executive Simon Gilby welcomed the report and praised the hard work of staff.

He said, “This reports reflects the amazing work of our caring, compassionate and committed staff across the organisation.

"I am pleased that the CQC has recognised the improvements we have made together over the last year, including the recognition that the trust is well-led.

“Improvements are recognised across all the services inspected, and it is pleasing to see the improved ratings in our wards and community services for older people and in our crisis services.

"Several areas of outstanding practice are highlighted, and we have been praised for embracing effective technology in providing care for our patients and service users.

“We know that there are areas that still need our attention and we welcome the CQC’s feedback and support as a further opportunity to make positive change.

"We have already made good progress since the inspections in August and September.

"We look forward to continuing to improve the safety and quality of our services and to working closely with our partners across the health and social care economy.”

Chair of the Trust, Jagtar Singh, OBE, said: “This achievement reflects many years of improvement and hard work.

"I’m extremely proud of all our staff who have worked extremely hard, and continue to do so.

"For this, I want to personally thank every single one of them.”

For the full report visit http://www.cqc.org.uk/provider/RYG