Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership downgraded to 'requires improvement'
The Care Quality Commission have told the Trust they have to make improvements after their latest inspection - with inspectors saying it's because of leadership
The quality of care being received by patients at a mental health trust in the West Country is being affected by the Partnership's leadership.
That's the results of a finding from the Care Quality Commission, who have today (May 5) released their latest findings following an inspection of the Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust.
The Trust have been told they must now make improvements after they were downgraded from a rating of 'good' to 'requires improvement' following the inspection back in February.
As well as the overall rating declining, how well-led the service is has also declined, and its rating for safe remains unchanged as requires improvement.
Ratings for effective, caring and responsive all remain good.
The overall rating for the trust remains requires improvement.
Serena Coleman, CQC deputy director of operations in the south of England, said: “During our inspection of the trust’s community services for adults, we found deterioration in how well the service was being led. Our experience tells us that when a service isn’t well-led, this has a knock-on effect on the quality of care being received by people.
“These leadership issues were beginning to undermine people’s safety as the service was unable to maintain improvements across some of the areas we looked at. For example while we saw improvements in how risks were being managed, we saw new issues with medicines management.
“The trust need to implement and sustain reliable processes to provide and record people’s medication, and leadership need to have better oversight of how medicines are managed. Without these processes, people might not receive the right medication at the right time.
“We saw teams learned from when incidents occurred but didn’t share this learning with the wider organisation, meaning people experienced preventable incidents in other teams.
“However, the service offered a range of treatments informed by best practice and actively involved people in their care decisions. People also told us their care coordinators were brilliant and friendly.
“We have shared our findings with the trust so it knows where improvements must be made, and where there’s good practice to build on.
“We will continue to monitor the service and will return to check improvements have been made where required.”
The findings of inspectors
- Administering, recording and storing medications - inspectors found the service 'did not always' have reliable systems in place
- Medicine management was not thorough enough
- Learning points made by members of leadership weren't always shared across the wider organisation
Despite these negative points, inspectors also found:
- Staff were compassionate, and patients spoke positively about their care
- Care was individualised
- Care involved people and their loved ones when decisions were being made
- Care plans were recovery-oriented, and based on comprehensive assessments
- A range of treatments were given to patients based on their needs
In a statement sent to us, the Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust said: "The CQC has acknowledged that our adult community mental health services remain caring and responsive, which is a testament to our staff during this challenging period.
"However, it is disappointing that the overall rating for the service has declined to requires improvement.
"We are committed to quickly bringing all areas back up to a suitable standard across every CQC domain."