Sheffield Children's NHS Foundation Trust

Updated 18 November 2022

• We rated effective, caring, responsive and well-led as good and safe as requires improvement.
• Sheffield Children’s Hospital was rated as good overall. Safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led were all rated as good. All ratings were the same as the previous inspection with the exception of safe, which had improved one rating.
• At this inspection, we rated five out of the six services we inspected as good overall and one as requires improvement. In rating this trust, we took into account the current ratings of the five services not inspected this time.
• Since our previous inspection in 2016, transition services and child and adolescent mental health wards had undertaken some significant work and improved one rating from requires improvement to good overall.
• Our full inspection report summarising what we found and the supporting Evidence Appendix containing detailed evidence and data about the trust is available on our website .

Updated 29 August 2025

The Becton Centre is a specialist child and adolescent mental health service (CAMHS) based in Sheffield and is part of Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust. There are 3 lodges located at the Becton Centre, all of which provide care on a local and national basis. We inspected this service over 3 days, 26, 27 November and 4 December 2024.

During this assessment, we identified 5 breaches of the Health and Social Care Act pilot 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014; 2 breaches of Regulation 12- Safe Care and Treatment, 3 breaches of Regulation 17- Good Governance.

Updated 26 October 2016

We rated effective, caring, responsive and well led as good. Safe was rated as requires improvement. We rated this service as good overall because:

• Staff were aware of their responsibility to report incidents, they knew how to report incidents, near misses and accidents and were encouraged to do so. Learning from incidents was shared between teams. However, it was hard for service leads to identify trends with regards to incidents as reporting was paper based.
• Safeguarding processes were in place and there was a dedicated safeguarding team in place. Practitioners received safeguarding training. However, we were not assured that the computer system kept children safe but relied on practitioner’s knowledge of the system.
• Care and treatment was evidence based with policies, procedures and pathways available to staff. There was good evidence of multi-disciplinary working. Staff were aware of their responsibilities with regards to obtaining consent.
• We observed staff treating people with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect. Feedback from children, young people and their families was positive.
• Services were planned to meet people’s needs and the needs of different people were taken in to account. Practitioners were aware of the needs of the local population.
• Leaders were approachable, supportive and encouraged staff engagement. However, some staff felt that there was not enough information given to them at an unsettling time, due to service redesign.
• Staff knew the trust vision and values. Governance systems were in place to ensure delivery of good quality care.

However:

• Health visitor caseloads exceeded recommendations and not all areas were offering a face to face antenatal contact to all mothers as part of the core offer.
• There was no consistency across the trust with regards to records. There was a risk that practitioners did not have access to information in a timely manner.

Updated 18 November 2022

Sheffield Children’s Hospital NHS Foundation trust provides specialist mental health services for children and young people across Sheffield and the wider region.

The community child and adolescent mental health service (CAMHS) is made up of nine teams. These include mainstream CAMHS, the specialist eating disorders and treatment team (SEDATT), learning disabilities and mental health, healthy minds, primary mental health, forensic CAMHS and multi-agency psychological support for looked after children. The teams work across different geographical locations. These include Beighton, Centenary House, Albion House, Gibson House, Star House, Amber Lodge and the Acute Hospital site.

The teams provide assessment and treatment for children and young people up to 18 years old with mental health conditions, learning disabilities, autism and/or emotional and behavioural difficulties. The service operates between Monday and Friday 9am until 5pm. Staff work with patients and their carers at a range of locations including schools, homes and in clinic.

The trust also provides a day unit and outreach service for children and young people at the Becton Centre. Amber Lodge is a regional unit and accepts referrals from child and adolescent mental health services throughout South Yorkshire. It provides services for children and young people aged between five and 11 years old who have severe and complex mental health problems.

The trust established the Supportive Treatment and Recovery (STAR) team in 2015. The team operates between 8.30am and 9.30pm seven days per week. This team provides assessment and brief intervention sessions to children and young people who present to the accident and emergency department with concerns for their mental health. The team also provide community intensive treatment. This is commissioned for typically three sessions per week for up to eight weeks.

The trust also established a health based place of safety for young people aged 16 to 17 in 2015. A health based place of safety is a place at a hospital where people are taken by the police or ambulance service for mental health assessment when they have been found by the police to appear to be suffering from a mental disorder and in need of immediate care or control. This must be necessary in the interests of the person or for the protection of others. The health based place of safety is situated at the Becton Centre alongside the child and adolescent mental health wards.

As part of this inspection we visited the following locations;

• Centenary House

• Beighton community centre

• Sheffield Treatment and Recovery (STAR) team at Sheffield Children’s Accident and Emergency

• Becton Centre health-based place of safety.

Our rating for this service stayed the same. We rated the service as requires improvement. The reasons for this rating are set out below;

• Children and young people waited a long time to access the service, clinicians had high caseloads which had an impact on their ability to provide safe care.
• The service did not always ensure that children and young people received a physical health check at their initial appointment.
• Staff did not always complete mandatory training.
• The trust did not always ensure that staff were safe in their role because policies, procedures and training in; management of violence and aggression lone working, and incident response were unclear.
• There was not a clear process in place to support young people who were leaving the service and not making a transition to adult services.
• Where there were gaps in delivery the service did not maintain adequate communication with young people, their carers or other agencies.
• Appointments that were cancelled by the service were not always re-appointed.
• Parents told us that they were concerned about the lack of urgent out of hours provision where their option was limited to attending the accident and emergency department.
• There were some areas of good governance which were not entirely effective.

However;

• Staff were described as patient and insightful.
• Parents were grateful for flexibility given in appointment arrangements and the variety of settings in which these could take place.
• The STAR team had expanded their remit to include all mental health presentations which improved access to mental health services for the wider community.
• The risk assessments carried out were comprehensive and also included crisis plans which were shared with all those involved in the care of the child or young person.
• The trust had made a number of improvements to the service and were taking an innovative approach based on continuous improvement.