Thornford Park

Ratings

• Overall

  Requires improvement

• Safe

  Requires improvement

• Effective

  Good

• Caring

  Requires improvement

• Responsive

  Requires improvement

• Well-led

  Requires improvement

Our view of the service

Thornford Park is a 141 bedded hospital providing medium and low secure forensic mental health services including two wards for people with learning disabilities and one ward for people with autism. It also has two psychiatric intensive care units and three rehabilitation flats which can accommodate up to 8 people.

• Bucklebury, is a 12 bedded male acute medium secure unit Tadley, is a 10 bedded male medium secure unit for people with a learning disability
• Adbury ward (formerly called Hermitage), is a 14 bedded male medium secure unit
• Kingsclere, is a 13 bedded male rehabilitation low secure unit
• Donnington, is a 14 bedded male low secure unit for people with autism
• Headley, is a 11 bedded male acute low secure unit
• Highclere, is a 17 bedded male low secure unit for older people
• Theale, is a 9 bedded male enhanced low secure unit
• Oakley, is a 12 bedded female integrated secure setting for people with a learning disability
• Crookham, is a11 bedded male psychiatric intensive care unit
• Curridge, is a 10 bedded female psychiatric intensive care unit
• Midgam, is a 2 bedded male low secure flat
• Ashford, is a 5 bedded male low secure flat
• Donnington Flat, is a 1 bed male low secure flat for people with autism 

We undertook this assessment following a series of serious incidents and increased safeguarding concerns. We also received a number of complaints from people and relatives which included lack of person-centred care and that the service did not always meet people’s dietary needs. Due to the nature of these concerns and previous concerns raised following CQC’s Mental Health Act review visit in January 2025, we made a decision to conduct an assessment. 

We last inspected this service in September 2021 when we rated the service Requires Improvement. Following this inspection our rating of the service stayed the same as we rated it Requires Improvement, this was because:

• There were issues with the environment across the hospital
• In the forensic and secure ward people told us they did not always feel involved in their care and people report not having access to their care plans or being involved in developing them
• Not all ligature risks were identified on the ligature audit
• Managers had not ensured the wards were always cleaned to an appropriate standard
• People reported that the wards were uncomfortable with alarms sounding regularly and that staff often woke at night while doing their observations
• People told us the food was not always tasty, filling and did not meet their dietary requirements
• The providers governance systems had not identified the issue we found on this inspection

However:

• There was a robust complaints and incident management system in place
• There was a clear pathway for people for people to be discharge and people had discharge plans in place
• The senior leadership team had a clear vision for the service
• In the Acute and PICU ward people being supported to make decisions about their care and being given copies of their care plans