The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is today publishing a report following an inspection at Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust.
Inspectors visited the trust between 25 February and 25 March 2020 to assess three core services: acute wards for adults of working age and psychiatric intensive care units, wards for people with a learning disability and specialist community mental health services for children and young people.
CQC temporarily suspended all routine inspections on 16 March 2020 to support and reduce the pressure on health and social care services during the COVID-19 pandemic. CQC, as well as providers, want to be able to prioritise keeping people safe during this time. This inspection was already underway at the time of the suspension and therefore couldn’t be completed in the usual way.
This report includes the findings from the completed service level inspections, but the well-led inspection was not completed. CQC is only able to update findings on well-led at the overall trust level or update the other trust-level ratings when the well-led component has been inspected. As a result, the ratings for the overall trust and five key questions included in this report are from a previous inspection.
Acute wards for adults of working age and psychiatric intensive care units remained as Requires Improvement. Specialist community mental health services for children and young people are now rated as Good previously they were rated as Requires Improvement. Wards for people with a learning disability or autism are now rated as Good previously they were rated as Inadequate. The Trust retains its previous overall Requires Improvement rating.
Karen Bennett-Wilson CQC’s Head of Inspection for Mental Health in the South, said:
“Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust has worked steadily to embed a number of the improvements we requested at our last inspection. I want to congratulate them for this work.
“I am particularly pleased that during this inspection we were able to record improvements in the wards for people with a learning disability or autism, including the Daisy Unit, which are now rated as Good where previously we had rated them as Inadequate.”
Full details of the ratings are given in the report published online at: www.cqc.org.uk/provider/RVN
During the COVID-19 pandemic, CQC’s immediate focus is on supporting providers to keep people safe during a period of unprecedented pressure
Although routine inspections have been paused, CQC’s regulatory role and core purpose of keeping people safe has not changed – safety is still the priority.
CQC will continue to collect insight and intelligence about the quality of care from existing data sources, providers, healthcare staff, stakeholders, and the public, and work closely with NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care to ensure additional support is in place where needed.
CQC is listening to what people are saying about services during this time to help detect any changes in care. If there is evidence people are at immediate risk of harm, CQC can and will take action to ensure that people are being kept safe. People can give feedback to CQC via the details below.
Telephone - 03000 616161
Give feedback via website- www.cqc.org.uk/give-feedback-on-care
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