Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust

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• Overview
• Kindness, compassion and dignity
• Treating people as individuals
• Independence, choice and control
• Responding to people’s immediate needs
• Workforce wellbeing and enablement

This means we looked for evidence that the service involved people and treated them with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.

This is the first assessment for this service. This key question has been rated Good.

Good: This meant people were supported and treated with dignity and respect; and involved as partners in their care.

This service scored 65 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. The service always treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity. Staff treated colleagues from other organisations with kindness and respect.

Staff attitudes and behaviours when interacting with patients showed that they were discreet, respectful and responsive, providing patients with help, emotional support and advice at the time they needed it.

We observed staff supporting patients with their parenting skills, in an encouraging way, enabling patients to develop their skills and build their confidence and competence.

Within the ward round we observed, staff reflected with patients about their experiences and discussed the reason for their admission in a person-centred way, acknowledging the trauma they had experienced.

Staff directed patients to other services when appropriate and, if required, supported them to access those services. We observed discharge planning taking place, including involvement of community teams and community resources.

Patients said staff treated them well and behaved appropriately towards them. We spoke with 4 patients. Patients told us that staff were supportive and listened to them. They were involved in the creation of their care plans and had copies.

Staff understood the individual needs of patients, including their personal, cultural, social and religious needs. Staff we spoke with understood the individual needs of patients and could give examples of specific requirements, for example in relation to family involvement, health needs and associated appointments.

However, staff did not always maintain the confidentiality of information about patients as there were several occasions during the assessment where the office door was left open and anyone could enter the office or overhear conversations that were taking place.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. The service treated people as individuals and made sure people’s care, support and treatment met people’s needs and preferences. They took account of people’s strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics.

The service made adjustments for disabled patients – for example, by ensuring disabled people’s access to premises and by meeting patients’ specific communication needs. The ward was on the ground floor and had flat level access.

Staff ensured that patients could obtain information on treatments, local services, patients’ rights, how to complain and the service worked jointly with Action for Postpartum Psychosis, there was a peer worker who spent time on the ward, encouraging patients to engage in activities and talk about their experiences on the ward. The Action for Postpartum Psychosis website included resources in Arabic, Bengali, Polish, Slovak and Urdu.

The information provided was in a form accessible to the particular patient group (for example, in easy-read form on wards for people with a learning disability). The service had created a film of a visual tour of the ward, so that new referrals could visualise the service prior to admission and knew what to expect.

Staff made information leaflets available in languages spoken by patients. The service had access to translation services, with options to have documents translated into different languages, Braille, large print, interpretations, text only, and audio formats. How to access the service was at the back of resources, for example the welcome pack.

Managers ensured that staff and patients had easy access to interpreters and/or signers. There were 4 agencies that the service used, with clear information about how to book interpreters and contact details for the providers. We saw in the visitors book on the ward that interpreters had attended the ward to interpret for patients.

Patients did not always have a choice of food to meet the dietary requirements of religious and ethnic groups and to account for allergies and intolerances. Patients said the food was quite bland, over cooked and not very appetising, they would welcome the opportunity to do more cooking.

Staff ensured that patients had access to appropriate spiritual support. There was a chaplain, who visited weekly. Staff supported patients to attend local churches where required. There was a spiritual care trolley on the ward with resources from different religions for patients use. This trolley was stored on the corridor for ease of access.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. The service promoted people’s independence, so people knew their rights and had choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing.

Patients we spoke to told us they were fully involved in their ward rounds, were asked their views on their treatment including medicines, side effects and other therapy, including psychological interventions.

We observed a ward round where a patient was giving positive feedback about the psychological self-help resources that had been given to them to work through which included cognitive behavioural approaches, the patient shared that they had used the techniques, and they were very helpful.

We saw interactions with staff and patients that were positive and individually tailored and included actions related to the individual, for example assistance with following up healthcare appointments for their child.

We scored the service as 2. The evidence showed some shortfalls. The service did not always listen to and understand people’s needs, views and wishes. However, staff responded to people’s needs in the moment to minimise any discomfort, concern or distress.

Staff were not always aware of service specific risks and did not always care plan for these accordingly. Perinatal assessments including risk to baby were not completed in full and current for 9 of the 10 women on the ward. One was completed and in date. This meant risks specific to this service were not considered for the women who were accessing the service at the time of the assessment.

Staff did not always identify and respond to changing risks to, or posed by, patients. Staff did not share all necessary information about patients at handover meetings within the team. In the handover we observed, the nurse handed over the observation level of all patients and babies and if they were on leave or on the ward and potential discharge dates, however, did not include risk. The handover records we reviewed showed that risk to self, others and early warning signs was not included in 7 out of 9 handover records for 3 November 2025, 7 out of 9 handover records for 5 November 2025, 6 out of 8 handover records for 9 November 2025 and 8 out of 10 handover records on 24 November 2025. This meant risk was not identified and shared with staff at handover, and changes in risk were not communicated at handover.

Staff used de-escalation techniques to reduce the need for physical interventions when patients’ behaviours became heightened. Patients told us that staff responded to distressed patients with empathy and supported those patients affected by the distress, this included encouraging them to move away from the area and having the opportunity to talk about it afterwards.

We scored the service as 2. The evidence showed some shortfalls. The service did not always care about and promote the wellbeing of their staff. However, they did support or enable staff to deliver person-centred care.

Staff we spoke with, did not always feel respected, supported and valued. Staff felt the multidisciplinary team was not always consistent in approach, with approaches of support not always aligning. Staff also felt unsupported if investigations were taking place.

Staff described cultural challenges within the staff team, however staff told us there had been some improvements in the couple of months prior to the assessment.

Staff enjoyed their roles and were very passionate about working in perinatal services and felt positive and proud about the service and the offer to women accessing it.

Staff had access to support for their own physical and emotional health needs through an occupational health service.

The staff survey showed that only 28% of the staff completing the survey felt the team deals with disagreements constructively and 76% of staff felt relationships at work were strained. The service were closing to admissions to enable air conditioning to be installed in early 2026 and senior leaders planned to use that time to deliver training to the team and focus on team building.

The service’s staff sickness and absence rates were rising throughout the year and were 9% in October 2025.

The provider recognised staff success within the service, there had been a staff awards evening.

Staff appraisals included conversations about career development and how it could be supported.