Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust

Ratings - Specialist community mental health services for children and young people

• Overall

  Good

• Safe

  Good

• Effective

  Good

• Caring

  Good

• Responsive

  Good

• Well-led

  Good

Our view of the service

We assessed the Specialist community mental health services for children and young people Mental Health provided by Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust from 9 to 11 June 2026. We decided to conduct an assessment covering 33 quality statements across the five key questions to assess whether the service was Safe, Effective, Caring, Responsive and Well Led. The service was last inspected in June and September 2021. At that inspection we rated the service as Requires Improvement overall. With ratings of Good under the Effective, Caring and Well Led key questions, and Requires Improvement under the Safe and Responsive key questions.

Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust was registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) delivered the following regulated activities:

• Assessment or medical treatment for persons detained under the Mental Health Act 1983
• Treatment of disease, disorder or injury
• Diagnostics and screening procedure

We visited the following teams as part of the assessment:

• South Gloucestershire
• North Somerset
• North Bristol

At this inspection we followed up on the 3 breaches of regulation that had previously been identified in 2021.

Regulation 12: Safe care and treatment: Staff did not continually monitor young people on waiting lists and respond to changes in their level of risk. Staff did not update young peoples’ risk assessment when risk changed.

At this inspection we saw that the teams had systems in place to monitor young people on waiting lists and saw examples were the risk level of young people on the waiting list changed and staff took appropriate action, including discussing at MDT and allocating the young person. we saw that risk assessments were being updated appropriately.

Regulation 15: Premises and equipment: In North Somerset staff had not correctly stored items subject to Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH). At North Somerset and North Bristol there were no general cleaning schedules and no rotas for cleaning toys. The design, layout, and furnishings of treatment rooms did not offer the young people treatment, privacy and dignity. The services in North Somerset and South Gloucestershire did not have had a full range of rooms and equipment to support treatment and care.

At this inspection we saw that COSHH items were stored correctly and all premises were generally clean and tidy and there were monthly toy cleaning rotas.

Regulation18: Staffing: The teams did not have enough staff with the appropriate training to keep the young people safe.

At this inspection the teams had enough staff with the appropriate skills to meet the needs of the young people. All sites we visited had appropriate space and access to the equipment they needed.

At this inspection we rated the service as Good. We rated safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led as Good.

We inspected the specialist community mental health services for children and young people provided by Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust on the 9, 10 and 11 of June 2026. Specialist community child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) provide assessment, advice and treatment for children and young people with severe and complex mental health problems.

• Staff received training in the Mental Capacity Act and the Mental Health Act.
• The trust had a policy for staff to follow for the Mental Capacity Act and the Mental Health Act.
• Staff worked in the least restrictive way looking to reduce hospital admissions.

However:

• There was a lack of documentation around capacity.

People's experience of this service

Young people and families who used the service told us that staff were kind and caring, worked with young people to set goals for their treatment and reviewed them throughout their treatment. We were also told that the care provide was effective and had improved young people’s lives.

We had mixed feedback about how young people and their families were involved in developing risk assessments and care plans. Some told us that they were involved and they had a copy of their care plan, while others told us they did not know about their care plan.

Families told us that accessing CAMHS could be difficult and that it took a long time to secure an appointment.