England’s Chief Inspector of Hospitals has rated the services provided by Black Country Partnership NHS Foundation Trust as Good following an inspection by the Care Quality Commission.
The CQC inspected core services at the trust, which provides inpatient and community mental health services, between 17 and 19 October 2016. As a result it is rated as Good overall as well as Good for being safe, caring effective, responsive and well led.
Black Country Partnership NHS Foundation Trust was previously inspected in November 2015 when it was rated as Requires Improvement and the trust board was told it needed to make a number of improvements.
CQC’s Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals (and lead for mental health), Dr Paul Lelliott, said:
“We were impressed by the trust’s response to our previous inspection and found a number of improvements had taken place. This is why we are now able to change its rating from Requires Improvement to Good."
“Our inspectors found the quality and consistency of risk assessments and care plans had improved, the trust was effectively engaged with patients, carers and staff and staffing levels had improved across its services."
“Modern matrons had been introduced to the trust, which staff said had a positive impact. We were impressed by feedback about the carers group and the work it had undertaken to support families of people living in Sandwell with mental health problems."
“The trust can be proud of how caring its staff are – we have rated community mental health teams for adults of working age and specialist community mental health teams for children and young people as Outstanding for being caring."
“While we found good and outstanding practice across the trust, we also found some areas where the trust needed to make further improvements. We have highlighted these to the trust and its leadership is aware of what it needs to do to ensure those improvements take place."
“We will continue to monitor the trust and our inspectors will return at a later date to check on its progress. In the meantime everyone at the trust should be proud of what they have done to bring about the improvements which have resulted in the trust’s new rating.”
The areas where the trust has been told it must improve, include:
- The trust must ensure patients admitted to the health-based place of safety at Hallam Street Hospital are safe, assess and reduce the potential risk of ligature points inside the bathroom and of patients harming themselves.
- The trust must ensure staff attend mandatory training.
- The trust must ensure specialist community mental health teams for children and young people have systems in place to process referrals and these are established and operated effectively.
Black Country Partnership NHS Foundation Trust provides mental health services in Sandwell and Wolverhampton, learning disability services in Sandwell, Wolverhampton and Walsall and children’s community services in Dudley.
A team of inspectors, which included a variety of specialists and experts by experience, visited hospital wards and community based mental health services for this inspection.
Full inspection reports have been published on our website.
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The trust can be proud of how caring its staff are – we have rated community mental health teams for adults of working age and specialist community mental health teams for children and young people as Outstanding for being caring.
CQC’s Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals (and lead for mental health), Dr Paul Lelliott