Priory Hospital Enfield

This means we looked for evidence that people were protected from abuse and avoidable harm.

At our last assessment we rated this key question Requires Improvement. At this inspection, the rating has improved and is Good.

Staff reported incidents and were aware of the learning from recent incident reports including improved handover information. Staff were trained in safeguarding and knew how to make safeguarding alerts. Staff completed comprehensive risk assessments and reviewed these regularly. Relevant health and safety environmental checks were in place across the wards. At the previous inspection we found that staff were not always completing the necessary physical health monitoring of patients who receive medicines by intramuscular rapid tranquilisation. At the current inspection we found overall improvement in this area, but it remained an area for the service to remain focused on performing consistently.

On the forensic wards, staff responded to specific risks in individualised ways and applied blanket restrictions on patients’ freedom only when justified, such as items that they were not allowed to bring on the ward.

We noted some areas for improvement on forensic wards. This included ensuring that patients had care plans in place for all physical health risks.