Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust

On this page

• Overview
• Person-centred Care
• Care provision, Integration and continuity
• Providing Information
• Listening to and involving people
• Equity in access
• Equity in experiences and outcomes
• Planning for the future

At our last assessment we rated this key question inadequate. At this assessment the rating has changed to requires improvement. We identified a breach of the regulations in relation to person centred care.

Since the last inspection, the service has strengthened its data systems for capturing children’s and young people’s protected characteristics, enabling more effective monitoring of equity. Staff take affirmative action to promote inclusion and ensure the child or young person remains at the centre of all decision‑making.

At the Westcotes House ongoing improvements continue, with alternative accommodation now available to support the service during this period of development. Staff provided compassionate, flexible and person‑centred care. However, long waits continued to affect responsiveness. Neurodevelopmental waits reached up to 3 years 5 months, outpatient waits up to 1 year 7 months, and only 64% of paediatric psychology referrals met the 18‑week target. Although care was inclusive and collaborative once children and young people were seen, significant waiting list pressures meant timely joined‑up care could not always be delivered.

The service provided clear, accurate and up‑to‑date information in formats tailored to individual needs. People were able to share feedback, ideas and complaints easily, and staff involved them in decisions about their care, communicating any changes made as a result. The service supported people to plan for important life changes, ensuring they had sufficient time and information to make informed decisions about their future.

This service scored 62 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

The service made sure people were at the centre of their care and treatment choices and they decided, in partnership with people, how to respond to any relevant changes in people’s needs.

Staff ensured care was person‑centred, compassionate, respectful and responsive to the individual needs, preferences and circumstances of children and young people. Staff worked in partnership with children, young people parents or carers, to plan care that reflected what mattered most to them.

Staff told us about an example of how they empowered a young person to make their own decisions about their care and treatment. Staff used games to help the young people understand their options and to support informed decision‑making.

Staff balanced parental involvement with respecting the confidentiality and autonomy of young people, particularly older adolescents. Where children and young people preferred to attend appointments alone, staff respected and supported this choice.

There were some shortfalls in how the service understood the health and care needs of people and their local communities, so care was not always joined-up, flexible or supportive of choice and continuity.

The service provided a range of community mental health pathways for children and young people, including outpatient, crisis, neurodevelopmental, eating disorder and intensive community support services. Once children and young people accessed the service, staff worked collaboratively across multidisciplinary teams to coordinate care, manage risk and support continuity between teams and services.

Although the trust had systems in place to support integration once children and young people were accepted into care, delays at the front end of the pathway limited the effectiveness of joined‑up working. Extended waits meant that assessments and interventions were not always timely, reducing the ability of staff to deliver consistent, coordinated care or to maintain continuity across the care pathway.

The service had measures in place to mitigate the impact of waiting, including written information, digital resources, group interventions and advice on how to access crisis services. While these arrangements provided some support, they did not sufficiently reduce the risks associated with lengthy delays. Children and young people did not always receive the right care at the right time, and continuity of care was compromised when needs changed during prolonged waiting periods.

Transition planning for young people approaching adult services was in place. However, delays earlier in the pathway meant that some young people were still waiting to access assessment or meaningful intervention as they approached transition age, increasing the risk of disrupted care and poor continuity between children’s and adult services.

The service supplied appropriate, accurate and up-to-date information in formats that were tailored to individual needs.

Service managers made notifications to external bodies as needed, this included the Care Quality Commission. Information governance systems included confidentiality of patient records. We saw confidentiality leaflets and electronic templates which supported people’s understanding of how their personal information was stored, used and kept private.

The service met the Accessible Information Standard. Staff used inclusive communication to ensure children and young people received information in formats suited to their needs. Communication preferences were recorded and shared with relevant partners. Information was available in multiple formats, including easy read, large print, voice‑over and text‑to‑speech. Translators and signers were available when required.

Staff made information leaflets available in languages spoken by children and young people. The trust had a dedicated team that developed digital resources tailored to the language needs of children, young people, and their families.

Staff ensured that children and young people could obtain information on treatments, local services, patients’ rights, how to complain or how to give feedback to CAMHS, the Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS), NHS England and the local Integrated Care Board (ICB). We observed posters and signage displayed throughout the service that clearly set out these routes for raising comments, concerns and compliments.

Staff ensured carers, families and commissioners were regularly updated about patient’s progress. We saw evidence of this in patient care records.

The service made it easy for people to share feedback and ideas, or raise complaints about their care, treatment and support. They involved people in decisions about their care and told them what had changed as a result.

There were 12 complaints in the last 12 months from 1 November 2024 to 1st November 2025. Of the 12 complaints received, waiting times for appointments and assessments was the highest category, with 4 complaints. Ten were linked to the Valentine centre and 2 to the crisis unit. One complaint was upheld for the Valentine Centre and 1 complaint upheld for the crisis unit.

Children and young people, relatives and carers knew how to complain or raise concerns. The service clearly displayed information about how to raise a concern. In meeting areas there were complaints and feedback forms and suggestion boxes. Written information provided to children young people, families and carers outlined how the complaints process worked.

Themes and trends from complaints identified by the provider from investigating complaints was fed back to teams and in individual staff members in supervisions. Learning was used to improve the service. This was followed up with staff monthly bulletins which included topics and themes taken from lessons learnt.

Staff knew how to handle complaints appropriately in community children and adults’ mental health services.

The service did not make sure that people could access the care, support and treatment they needed when they needed it. One site was not accessible.

Waiting times for the Crisis Team and the CAMHS, were within targets. However, there were significant delays for more specialist services, such as psychology and ADHD assessments. Children and young people and staff told us there were long waits for services. After children and young people had received their first contact, there could be considerable waiting times for further appointments. For example, in October 2025, 566 children or young people were waiting for an outpatient appointment. The longest waiting time on this list was 1 year and 7 months. Similarly, 422 people were waiting for group work sessions. For this service, the longest wait was 1 year and 4 months. The paediatric psychology service was commissioned for children and young people up to 19 years of age. Only 64% of referrals met the 18‑week target, meaning over one‑third of children and young people waited too long.

The neurodevelopmental service was considerably oversubscribed. The trust was taking extensive steps to address this. For example, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) medication reviews were delivered in primary care to free up capacity for assessments. Appointments for children and young people who had achieved a level of stability were provided by an ADHD nurse instead of a paediatrician. The service had increased the number of nurses, speech and language therapists and occupational therapists. Information about other support services was provided to children and young people whilst they were waiting for an assessment. The service had also reviewed the diagnostic pathway to make this process more efficient. Each week staff held a patient tracking liaison meeting to talk through children and young people waiting, and how to unblock any unnecessary waits. There was a focus on any children and young people who had been waiting 52 weeks or more. Further, the trust had submitted a case to the integrated care board for additional funding. However, in October 2025, 1887 people were waiting for an assessment by the service. Waiting times were up to 3 years and five months.

Staff and leaders actively listened to information about people who were most likely to experience inequality in experience or outcomes and tailored their care, support and treatment in response to this.

Staff within the service and the wider organisation promoted a culture in which the people using the service felt empowered to give their views. Staff actively promoted children and young people’s voices through feedback mechanisms and youth participation forums, including the Youth Advisory Board, which influenced service development and improvements in accessibility and experience. The trust had recently recruited volunteers to support children and young people on site, welcoming them to appointments, assisting with group work and helping them navigate CAMHS services.

The provider had undertaken equality impact assessments of their policies and procedures to ensure they did not place vulnerable people or people with protected characteristics at a disadvantage. Staff had a clear understanding of which children and young people were most at risk of unequal access, experience or outcomes including those with neurodevelopmental needs, complex mental health presentations, care experience, and diverse ethnic, cultural or socio‑economic backgrounds. Leaders used waiting time data, referral patterns and feedback to identify where inequalities occurred, recognising that long waits for neurodevelopmental, outpatient and group interventions disproportionately impacted some groups and increased the risk of poorer outcomes. In response, the trust implemented a structured ‘Waiting Well’ approach that provided information, digital resources, group support and clear guidance on accessing urgent or crisis help. This reduced the negative effects of delays.

The provider were committed to addressing health inequalities and progressing with the Patient and Carer Race Equality Framework (PCREF). Within CAMHS, this aligns to the work being undertaken by the health equity leads. Monitoring of implementation of PCREF is taking place through the providers PCREF Steering Group.

The trust identified new roles within the service focused on addressing equity and tailoring care, including community participation and health equity leads, youth workers, peer support workers, and carer support workers.

Staff received regular training in equality, diversity, inclusion and human rights. This helped staff understand their responsibilities and support people in a fair, respectful and person‑centred way.

People were supported by planning for important life changes, so they could have enough time to make informed decisions about their future.

Staff supported patients to make decisions about their care and treatment and their future. Staff supported children and young people to plan for key life transitions, particularly the move from children to adult mental health services. We found clear evidence of transition planning within care plans for young people approaching the adult service threshold, providing assurance that their move to adult services was coordinated and person‑centred.

Staff created personalised care plans to account for the patient’s needs, wishes and feelings. Care plans were individualised and usually reflected young people’s aspirations, goals and evolving needs. This helped children and young people understand what support would look like over time and what their options would be for decisions about their future care.

Staff ensured all relevant healthcare professionals and other relevant bodies were involved in planning the care and treatment of people with complex needs. Staff worked collaboratively with all relevant professionals and partner agencies to plan care for children and young people with complex needs. They involved paediatricians, CAMHS clinicians, health visitors, school nursing teams, education providers and social care practitioners to ensure assessments were thorough and plans were holistic. Information was shared appropriately, and specialist advice was incorporated into individualised care plans.