Updated 10 March 2026
We carried out a focused assessment of Cognacity on 18 and 19 May 2026. We reviewed the provider’s progress against a warning notice for Regulation 17 and additional breaches under Regulations 12 and 13 identified during our previous inspection in October 2025. This assessment focused on governance and the management of risk. We inspected the safe, effective, responsive and well-led key questions. We did not inspect the caring key question and its rating remains unchanged. At the previous inspection, the service was rated requires improvement overall, with safe rated inadequate. As a result of this inspection, our ratings changed. We rated safe good, effective good, responsive as good and well led as good. Overall, our rating for this service changed from requires improvement to good.
Cognacity is an independent consultant-led outpatient mental health service based in London and operated by Cognacity Health Limited. It provides assessments and treatment for adults and children experiencing a range of mental health conditions, including ADHD and autism. Services are available to self-funding patients and those funded through private medical insurance.
During this assessment, we found the provider had made significant improvements and had met the requirements of the warning notice. Governance arrangements had strengthened and leaders had implemented systems to improve oversight of prescribing, incidents, risk management, safeguarding processes and environmental safety. Staff consistently assessed and managed risk, and processes were in place to support safer care and treatment. Records were now maintained for all patients, were contemporaneous and accessible, and were subject to routine audit and oversight.
Improvements had also been made to safeguarding arrangements, incident management, communication with GPs and medicines governance. The service had introduced clearer admission criteria, strengthened prescribing oversight and improved monitoring systems to identify and respond to potential risks.
However, some governance processes were relatively new and were not yet fully embedded. We found examples where learning from incidents was not consistently shared and some risk assessments lacked sufficient details. The service also did not routinely analyse outcome measures to evaluate the effectiveness of treatment, even though staff attempted to collect feedback from patients.
Overall, we found the provider had made progress since the previous inspection and was no longer in breach of the warning notice. Further work was needed to ensure improvements were sustained and fully embedded across the service.