Chief Inspector of Hospitals publishes report on the quality of care provided by Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust

England's Chief Inspector of Hospitals, Professor Sir Mike Richards, has published a report on the quality of care provided by Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust.

Under its inspection model, CQC gives individual ratings to each of the core services at NHS trusts and gives trusts an overall rating.

CQC inspected the core services provided by Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust between 9 and 13 March 2015. The trust provides community health and mental health services across Leicestershire (see our report for the full list of services inspected). The trust operates in three divisions: adult mental health and learning disability, community health services, and families, children and young people.

The trust has been rated as ‘Requires Improvement’ overall. It was rated as ‘Good’ for whether services are caring, ‘Requires Improvement’ for whether services are effective, responsive and well-led and ‘Inadequate’ for whether services are safe.

CQC has told the trust to take action in several areas, including:

• The trust must ensure that medicines are stored, administered, recorded and safely disposed.
• The trust’s use of syringes and needles must meet the Health and Safety Executive regulations.
• The trust must ensure that action is taken to remove identified ligature risks and mitigate where there are poor lines of sight.
• National guidance must be followed regarding mixed sex accommodation in order to promote safety and dignity.
• Emergency equipment must be checked on a regular basis.
• The trust must ensure there are sufficient and appropriately qualified staff at all times to provide care to meet patients’ needs.
• The trust must ensure that patients detained under the Mental Health Act have information on how to contact the CQC should they need to.
• The trust must ensure that all risk assessments and care plans are updated consistently in line with changes to patients’ needs or risks.

However, across the community health services, inspectors heard positive feedback from patients and carers and treatment was delivered in a sensitive and dignified manner. Community services for adults, children and young people reported good patient involvement in their care.

CQC is aware that the trust has already started to make several changes and is working to rectify the issues raised by inspectors.

The CQC inspection team found some areas of good practice, including:

• Overall, inspectors saw good multidisciplinary working and people’s needs were assessed appropriately and effectively.
• Staff were determined to provide high quality care despite the challenges of staffing levels and some poor ward environments. Inspectors observed some positive examples of staff providing emotional support to people.
• Procedures for incident management and safeguarding were implemented and well used.

CQC’s Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals (and lead for mental health), Dr Paul Lelliott, said:

“Our inspectors found the trust must make some improvements to bring its services overall up to a level that would earn a rating of ‘Good’. We gave immediate feedback to the trust following the inspection and this report presents the detail of our findings, our ratings and our recommendations.

“In particular, we were concerned that staffing levels were not sufficient at a number of inpatient wards and community teams across the trust. Policies and procedures regarding restraint and seclusion did not comply with national guidance and we found a number of mental health wards that did not provide a safe environment.

“However, as well as finding some areas for improvement, we also found a number of areas of good practice across the trust. In particular, we concluded that most staff were caring and compassionate.

“Community health services were delivered to a good standard and we heard positive feedback from patients and carers.

“The trust leadership knows what it needs to do to bring about improvement and our inspectors will return at a later date to check on what progress has been made.”

Full reports for the trust will be published on CQC’s website today at the following link: www.cqc.org.uk/location/RT5X1.

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