Trust’s mental health wards for older people are rated Good by CQC

Published: 27 April 2017 Page last updated: 3 November 2022
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Mental health wards for older people at Central and North West London NHS Trust have been rated as Good overall by the Care Quality Commission.

The wards at five different trust sites were rated as Good for being effective, caring, responsive and well-led. They were rated as Requires Improvement for being safe, after the inspection carried out at the end of January and beginning of February 2017.

The trust had made many improvements since the last CQC inspection in 2015 when caring, responsiveness and effectiveness were all rated as Requires Improvement.

At the most recent inspection wards were clean and well maintained. The risks to individual patients were identified and managed to ensure patients were safe.

Staffing levels supported the delivery of care and escorted leave and activities were rarely cancelled.

Patients’ needs were comprehensively assessed when they were admitted and staff had the knowledge and skills to meet these.

Patients had good access to physical healthcare including access to specialists when needed.

Paul Lelliott, Deputy Chief Inspector (Mental Health), said:

“It’s always good to see an improvement in mental health services. The staff responsible for the wards for older people with mental health problems at Central and North West London NHS Trust deserve credit for the work that they have done.

“Patients described staff as caring and kind and told us they were treated with dignity and respect. Where patients were unable to tell us, we saw staff treat patients with kindness and compassion. Relatives and carers told us staff appropriately involved them in planning and reviewing patient care.

“Staff told us that they were supported with their work, training and professional development to effectively meet patients’ needs.

“However, the report does outline a number of areas where the trust still needs to improve and we will be checking to make sure these are carried out.”

You can read the report on our website: scroll down the right hand side of the page and click on the link for ‘Wards for older people with mental health problems’.

Ends

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Patients described staff as caring and kind and told us they were treated with dignity and respect.

Paul Lelliott, Deputy Chief Inspector (Mental Health)

About the Care Quality Commission

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and social care in England.

We make sure health and social care services provide people with safe, effective, compassionate, high-quality care and we encourage care services to improve.

We monitor, inspect and regulate services to make sure they meet fundamental standards of quality and safety and we publish what we find to help people choose care.