South Yorkshire trust’s rating upgraded to Good

South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust’s rating upgraded to Good as services to patients improve

England’s Chief Inspector of Hospitals has upgraded the overall rating of South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust from Requires Improvement to Good following an inspection earlier this year.

During this inspection, the team looked areas where the trust had been told they must improve during a comprehensive inspection in March 2016.

The full reports including ratings for the provider’s core services are available on our website.

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

“Following our original inspection in 2016, we asked South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust to make changes to improve the consistency and quality of care it provided across a number of services. Although there were pockets of good care, we also found areas where improvements were needed."

“It is clear that the trust has acted on the findings of our initial inspection and this is reflected in the improved quality of care we found this time round."

“We came across many examples where patient experience has improved, and they are providing a much more effective service to the people using them."

“We were impressed with the improvements we saw, and the staff at South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust should be pleased with their enhanced rating."

“However, there is further room for improvement; particularly to ensure that young people and people with a learning disability have prompt access to treatment.”

The trust’s overall ratings in the domains of safety, effectiveness and well-led have moved from Requires Improvement to Good.

CQC have also changed the ratings of four core services from Requires Improvement to Good: community mental health services for older people, specialist community mental health services for young people, the forensic secure inpatient wards, and the long stay rehabilitation mental health wards for adults of working age.

Inspectors identified a number of areas where the trust had made improvements:

• The trust had appointed a new chief executive officer, which had a significant and positive impact on the organisation.
• The trust had made improvements around communication and engagement with staff, and staff spoke of a positive change in culture across the organisation
• In an attempt to address recruitment and retention of staff, the trust had identified funding for a specialist recruitment agency to help increase staffing . Since the last inspection, the trust had completed targeted monthly recruitment drives and in the eight months following our last inspection, the trust has recruited over 60 nurses.
• CQC found that the trust had mitigated ligature risks by reducing blind spots using mirrors.
• The trust had improved the physical health monitoring for patients who had been prescribed high dose antipsychotic medication.

The inspection has identified a number of areas where the trust must improve, including:

• The trust must continue to work towards reducing waiting lists across all community mental health services for children and young people, and all pathways, so that young people are not waiting excessive amounts of time for support and treatment.
• The trust must ensure timely access to specialist assessment and interventions within community learning disability teams.
• The trust must ensure staff on all wards have the necessary mandatory training to enable them to carry out their role on the acute wards for adults of working age and psychiatric intensive care units.

Ends

For further information please contact CQC Regional Engagement Officer Kerri James by email kerri.james@cqc.org.uk or by phone on 07464 92 9966. 

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