Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust

On this page

• Overview
• Assessing needs
• Delivering evidence-based care and treatment
• How staff, teams and services work together
• Supporting people to live healthier lives
• Monitoring and improving outcomes
• Consent to care and treatment

Staff did not always assess the physical health of all patients on admission. They did not always develop individual care plans which were reviewed regularly through multidisciplinary discussion and were not consistently updated as needed.

The ward team had access to a range of specialists required to meet the needs of patients on the ward, such as nutritionists and occupational therapists. However, specialist staff were being utilised for enhanced observations, reducing the therapeutic input for patients that were on general observations.

This service scored 50 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

Assessing needs

We reviewed 7 care records during the assessment.
Patients did not always have their physical health assessed soon after admission and this was not always regularly reviewed during their time on the ward.
Staff did not consistently develop a comprehensive care plan for each patient that met their mental and physical health needs. Some patients did not have an up-to-date care plan and did not always have a documented treatment plan in place. One patient did not have a care plan or any reviews in place following a serious incident regarding their physical health. This increased risk of serious and avoidable harm to patients.
 

Delivering evidence-based care and treatment

Patients were admitted to the ward with a mental illness diagnosis. Care and treatment involved prescribing medicines and offering therapeutic activities. Psychology groups and interventions included talking, music and art therapy.
Staff ensured that patients had access to physical healthcare, including access to specialists when needed. Staff supported patients to attend the acute hospital for required treatment.
The team included a range of specialists required to meet the needs of patients in the service, including activity co-ordinators and occupational therapists. However, these staff were used to cover 1:1 observations at times.
Managers had identified the learning needs of staff and were in the process of delivering training specific to a patient group that was prevalent in the service at the time.
Staff used technology to support patient care, this included patients having a personal device to communicate with family and carers and tablets to record required observation records.
Managers mostly supported permanent staff to develop through yearly, constructive appraisals of their work. Between October 2025 and December 2025, appraisals were between 72.2% and 73.6% complete.
Managers mostly supported staff through regular, constructive clinical supervision of their work. Clinical and managerial supervision compliance was between 91.3% and 70.8% between October and December 2025.
Permanent staff were experienced and qualified and had the right skills and knowledge to meet the needs of the patient group. However, patients told us agency staff did not always appear to have the right skills to care for them, with some describing them as ‘disinterested’. The trust told us they had not used agency staff in the 6 months prior to our visit.

How staff, teams and services work together

Staff held regular, weekly multidisciplinary meetings to discuss patients and improve their care. At these meetings, staff reviewed the patients’ progress.

Staff shared information about patients and any changes in their care, including during handover meetings. However, one staff member told us that comprehensive handovers were not always completed due to capacity pressures on staff. Nurses and healthcare assistants held a handover meeting at the start of each shift.

Information relating to care, help and support, advocacy access, activities, chaplaincy and spiritual care and feedback on care were displayed on the ward notice board for patients.

Supporting people to live healthier lives

Staff did not always identify patients’ physical health needs and record them in their care plans. One patient was recorded as having physical health needs that would require monitoring and medication but had no update or support for these conditions noted subsequently.
Staff supported patients to live healthier lives – for example, through participation in a smoking cessation scheme.
Ward activities helped promote a healthy lifestyle for patients – for example a weekly physiotherapy session and weekly walking group.
 

Monitoring and improving outcomes

Staff did not consistently monitor patients’ health, their mental state and well-being, with care plans and risk assessments being inconsistent for the patients we looked at. Staff did not always engage or interact with patients on enhanced observations. However, we saw some evidence of personalised care including staff supporting a patient to take part in art therapy.
Staff used a recognised rating scale - Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation (CORE)-34. This is a widely used psychological assessment tool that helps clinicians evaluate the effectiveness of treatment and monitor client progress.
 

Consent to care and treatment

Staff did not always assess each patients’ capacity to consent to admission and treatment. Only 6 of the 7 patients records we looked at had a capacity assessment recorded.
In the records we reviewed, patient’s views and wishes were not always recorded.
Staff sometimes engaged with patients’ families, however, their views and contribution were not recorded.