Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust

Ratings - Forensic inpatient or secure wards

• Overall

  Good

• Safe

  Good

• Effective

  Good

• Caring

  Good

• Responsive

  Good

• Well-led

  Good

Our view of the service

We carried out an inspection of the Trust’s Forensic and Secure wards on 21st and 22nd October 2025. We assessed 21 quality statements across Safe, Effective, Caring, Responsive and Well Led key questions.

The trust has 5 medium and low secure wards across Norfolk and Suffolk, 4 of which are male wards and 1 female ward.

The inspection team comprised of 2 CQC inspectors, 1 specialist advisor and 1 CQC regulatory coordinator.

During the inspection we:

• Visited 3 wards at Northside House and reviewed the ward environments and clinic rooms.
• Spoke with 20 staff members of various grades and roles.
• Spoke with 11 patients and 4 carers of patients.
• Reviewed 15 care records and medicines administration records for patients within the service.
• Attended 1 safety huddle meeting.
• Reviewed a range of information including policies, meeting minutes and service data.

The service was last inspected in September 2018 when we rated the service as Good overall with Requires Improvement for Safe and Good for Effective, Caring, Responsive and Well Led.

At our last inspection we found breaches relating to learning from incidents, risk management, medicines optimisation and seclusion. The service had made improvements in these areas and was no longer in breach of regulations.

At this inspection we rated this service as good in each domain, and good overall.