The Retreat York

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 assessment the rating has changed to good.

Good: This meant people were safe and protected from avoidable harm.

Managers understood their responsibility under duty of candour and had written to apologise where appropriate to clients.

We looked at five records and found they were all up to date with risk reviewed in monthly client progress appointments. We also saw staff reviewing risk when referrals were made to the service.

The service had increased the number of psychiatrists and the number of clinic hours since the last assessment.

Staff followed systems and processes to prescribe medicines safely. The clinic did not hold medication on site and prescriptions were sent to local pharmacies for dispensing, posted to clients or prescriptions were picked up directly from the service. 

However, there was still a long waiting time from referral to first assessment with a practitioner. The service had addressed issues from the previous assessment such as ease of contacting the service, increasing staffing levels and improving, ‘did not attend’ statistics.