Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

On this page

• Overview
• Shared direction and culture
• Capable, compassionate and inclusive leaders
• Freedom to speak up
• Workforce equality, diversity and inclusion
• Governance, management and sustainability
• Partnerships and communities
• Learning, improvement and innovation

This means we looked for evidence that service leadership, management and governance assured high-quality, person-centred care; supported learning and innovation; and promoted an open, fair culture.

At our last assessment we rated this key question Good. At this assessment the rating has remained Good.

Good: This meant the service was consistently managed and well-led. Leaders and the culture they created promoted high-quality, person-centred care.

We rated this key question as good because:

• Staff understood the trusts values
• Managers kept staff updated about changes in the trust and how it affected them
• Mangers looked to improve performance
• The trust encouraged feedback from young people and their families

This service scored 75 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

Staff we spoke with said they understood how the trusts values related to this service.

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare formed in October 2024 following the coming together of services from four trusts with the aim to increase cohesive centralised care to the population from a single trust. This meant there had been lots of changes for the service. The staff told us managers had arranged lots of drop-in sessions for them to find out about the changes, how they would affect their work and what support was available.

Staff told us that senior leaders listened to their concerns and would take action when appropriate. However, some staff told us that not all staff embraced change and did not always follow new procedures. For example, contacting parents after ward rounds and drafting letters so that parents received written feedback following ward rounds.

Leaders and staff we spoke with showed that they had the skills, experience and knowledge for their role. They reviewed the services performance to find ways to improve the quality of the service they provided. For example, they found that staff on one to one support at night were not routinely engaging with the young people so they met with the staff explained the role and how they could improve engagement with the young people in their care.

Staff told us that senior leaders visited the ward regularly and helped when needed. Staff told us that senior leader were approachable and listened to staff. Staff told us that managers worked with them to identify training and development opportunities. For example, training in eating disorders and Positive Behaviour Support.

Managers ensured that young people had the opportunity to give feedback about the service in the morning meeting, in one-to-one sessions and via feedback forms. Staff acted on feedback they received to adapt the service too individual needs. For example, young people had complained about the noise level on the ward so staff had been recommended to speak quietly, the volume of the telephone had been reduced and they supplied ear defenders for young people to use on the ward.

Managers encouraged staff to give feedback about the service, and they told us that they felt empowered to do so. At the time of our inspection 98% of staff had received freedom to speak up training.

Young people were involved in changes to the ward. For example, a young person was always involved in staff interviews.

Mangers made themselves available if parents wanted to speak with them.

The trust has a clear diversity and Inclusion strategy that identified how they expected staff to work to ensure all young people received a positive experience of care. The strategy also informed staff of what they should expect from the trust such as equal opportunities for career development. The trust was committed to making reasonable adjustments for staff to improve their working environment. For example, the trust has a clear process for staff to follow if they wanted to apply for flexible working.

The trust monitored the workforce in line with national guidance to help ensure it represented the community it supported.

The trust had staff networks to provide staff with protected characteristics, under the Equality Act, with a safe environment to discuss issues relating to their protected characteristics. The trust also had ally training for staff to recognise discrimination and act when they saw discrimination, with the goal of ending it.

There was a clear governance process in place that allowed staff and leaders to find issues and address them. The local governance system fed into the wider trust governance process which meant that senior leaders could monitor the effectiveness and quality of the service. The managers attended a monthly quality and safety performance meeting which allowed them to measure the hospitals performance against other trust services and make changes to address any concerns. For example, they identified situations when young people were more likely to attempt to abscond from hospital and looked at ways, they could engage the young people during these times to distract them.

Staff had a clear understanding of how they worked with other services within the trust and with other providers.

The service had emergency plans in place for dealing with situations like the hospital flooding.

The hospital had a gatekeeping role across Hampshire. This role involved identifying if young people required hospital admission or needed support in the community. This involved their staff joining professional meetings about young people’s care.

There were clear feedback processes in place for young people and families. The trust had a clear procedure on complaints and when needed patients could meet with senior leaders to explain their experience of using the service.

The service had a local quality improvement plan in place, this included improving staff morale. To improve staff morale managers had focused on wellbeing. They had wellbeing meetings for staff and set up wellbeing processes such as sending staff cards to recognise good work and to staff who had been involved in difficult incidents.

The service had not been involved in any national audits or research in the 12 months prior to our inspection.