- SERVICE PROVIDER
Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust
This is an organisation that runs the health and social care services we inspect
Assessment report published 12 May 2026
Contents
Ratings - Child and adolescent mental health wards
Our view of the service
We assessed the child and adolescent mental health ward at Pennine Care NHS Foundation trust from 11 to 12 November 2025. The Mental Health Hospital was initially registered with CQC in December 2010 to deliver the regulated activities: Assessment or medical treatment for persons detained under the Mental Health Act 1983 and Treatment of disease, disorder, or injury. The service had a controlled drugs accountable officer.
We visited Hope Ward as part of the assessment:
Hope ward was a child and adolescent mental health ward. The service provided tier four child and adolescent mental health services delivered in specialist inpatient settings. The care focused on children and young people who had severe or complex mental health conditions that could not be adequately treated in the community or who needed extended assessment or treatment. The child and adolescent mental health inpatient services provided by Pennine Care NHS Foundation trust were currently in one setting. The Hope Unit is a 12-bed unit that opened in 2008. It provided acute psychiatric inpatient service for patients aged 13 to 18, in an appropriate age environment. The unit provided intensive assessment and treatment for patients with mental illness or psychiatric disorder for which enhanced community treatment was no longer viable or safe. These included patients detained under the Mental Health Act.
At this assessment we identified one breach of regulation in relation to staffing in the child and adolescent mental health ward.
At this assessment we assessed 1 assessment service group; Child and adolescent mental health wards, where we assessed 33 quality statements.
We rated the service as Good.
People's experience of this service
We spoke with 6 patients and 4 parents. Patients we spoke with said they mostly felt safe on the ward however the parents we spoke with felt their child was unsafe. This included checks not being made when on observations for their child and other patients observing self-harm incidents.
Parents we spoke with told us they received daily updates about their family members by telephone (family contact time) as well as having weekly telephone calls from their family member’s named nurse. They told us there was a family clinic held weekly where consultants and family therapists attended to provide updates about their family members. Friends and family tests provided positive feedback about the unit that was used to capture feedback from parents and carers as well as service users. Carers and young people provided positive feedback about the ward and the staff team on the unit, saying staff were brilliant and the care was outstanding, staff were approachable, they listened and they were lovely.