- SERVICE PROVIDER
Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust
This is an organisation that runs the health and social care services we inspect
Assessment report published 17 March 2026
Contents
Ratings - Community-based mental health services for adults of working age
Our view of the service
We carried out an inspection of Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust’s (PCFT) community-based mental health services for adults of working age from 14 – 24 October 2025. The community-based mental health services for adults of working age form part of the trust’s mental health services in the community. This inspection was completed as part of CQC's Adult Community Mental Health Programme. We also inspected mental health crisis services and health-based places of safety as part of the programme. The programme of inspections contributes to CQC's commitment to inspect the standard of care in community mental health services across the country. We undertook a short notice announced, comprehensive inspection of this service, looking at all 5 key questions to assess if services are safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led.
PCFT is part of the Greater Manchester Integrated Care System (ICS), and its adult community mental health services provide care and treatment to a population of over 1.2 million people living across 5 local authorities; Bury, Rochdale, Oldham, Tameside and Stockport. PCFT covers a diverse area, with all 5 local authorities being more ethnically diverse than the national average, with higher proportions of people from an Asian or Asian British background than average. Oldham has the highest proportion of people from an Asian or Asian British background, at just under a quarter of the population. In the Index of Multiple Deprivation, Rochdale local authority ranks in the 10% most deprived local authorities nationally, whilst Tameside and Oldham rank amongst the 20% most deprived local authorities. Deprivation is linked with poorer health outcomes. The 2021 Health Index scores indicate that Stockport had better health than across England in 2015. The remaining local authorities had worse health than the rest of England in 2015, with Rochdale and Oldham experiencing the worst in the ICS. Stockport was the only local authority with life expectancy greater than the national averages for males and females. All local authorities have higher proportions of people aged 0 to 17 years than the national average, and lower proportions of people aged 18 to 64 than the national average. Data from 2023/24 showed Tameside had rates of emergency admissions due to self-harm, higher than the national average for males and females, though suicide rates were lower than the national average for both males and females. Bury and Rochdale both had higher rates of suicide for males and females than the national average.
PCFT’s community-based mental health services for adults of working age include 10 community mental health teams (CMHTs), an assertive outreach team in Stockport, 5 early intervention teams (EIT), 5 neighbourhood mental health teams (known as Living Well) and 4 access/response teams. Across PCFT these are:
- Tameside South CMHT
- Tameside West CMHT
- Tameside North CMHT
- Stockport East CMHT
- Stockport West CMHT
- Oldham CMHT
- Rochdale West CMHT
- Rochdale East CMHT
- Heywood Middleton CMHT
- Bury CMHT
- Bury EIT
- Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale EIT
- Oldham EIT
- Stockport EIT
- Tameside and Glossop EIT
- Oldham Access Team
- Rochdale Response Hub
- Stockport Access Team
- Tameside and Glossop Mental Health Open Door
- Bury Living Well
- Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale Living Well
- Oldham Living Well
- Stockport Living Well
- Tameside and Glossop Living Well
The teams are managed as part of locality care hubs within area networks. South Network includes Tameside care hub and Stockport care hub. North Network includes Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale care hub, Bury care hub and Oldham care hub.
During the inspection we visited 8 sites (Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale EIT, Heywood and Middleton CMHT, Stockport East CMHT, Stockport Assertive Outreach, Oldham EIT, Bury CMHT, Tameside North CMHT, Stockport EIT). These sites included the following teams:
- community mental health teams,
- early intervention teams,
- assertive outreach,
- and various medicines clinics.
At the time of our inspection, the trust was in the process of implementing its community services transformation. The transformation focused on achieving greater consistency in the delivery and quality of care across the trust, whilst also achieving the aims of the NHS Community Mental Health Framework to have a greater focus on preventative healthcare in localities. Before the transformation, CMHTs had been integrated with the local authority. CMHTs had split from the local authority less than a month before the time of our inspection.
We last inspected PCFT’s community-based mental health services for adults of working age in 2016 when we rated it requires improvement. We identified 2 breaches of the regulations in relation to staff mandatory training compliance and incomplete and/or out of date care records and assessments. At this inspection, we identified 3 breaches of the regulations in relation to ensuring people who used services who were under Community Treatment Orders were made aware of their rights, governance, and staffing levels, training and supervision. However, we identified improvements in quality of care records and timeliness of assessments.
We have asked the provider for an action plan in response to the concerns found at this inspection.
People's experience of this service
People’s experience of the service was mixed.
We spoke to 12 people who used services and 10 carers. Most people who used services described staff as “going above and beyond” to support them and gave examples of staff making them feel safe, supported and listened to.
Feedback from local Healthwatch and carer support groups highlighted people’s difficulties sometimes with accessing care and treatment.
Between October 2024 and September 2025, the service received 52 compliments from people and carers. Tameside South CMHT received the highest number of compliments during that period, with 9 in total.