Kent and Medway Mental Health NHS Trust

On this page

• Overview
• Assessing needs
• Delivering evidence-based care and treatment
• How staff, teams and services work together
• Supporting people to live healthier lives
• Monitoring and improving outcomes
• Consent to care and treatment

At our last assessment we rated this key question as requires improvement. At this assessment the rating has remained requires improvement. This meant the effectiveness of patient’s care, treatment and support did not always achieve good outcomes or was inconsistent.

This service scored 58 (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 2. The evidence showed some shortfalls. The service did not always make sure people’s care and treatment was effective because they did not always check and discuss people’s health, care, wellbeing and communication needs with them.

The adult community mental health service had a referral and triage process in place to assess patients’ needs at the point of referral and to plan appropriate care and treatment with them. Staff we spoke with demonstrated a clear understanding of the referral and triage process, including how to escalate any identified risk concerns. Referral meetings were held regularly throughout the week and attended by a multidisciplinary team, ensuring that patients’ needs were considered.

Most staff in the adult community mental health services demonstrated an awareness of the importance of meeting the needs of carers alongside those of the patients they supported. Staff informed carers of their right to a carer’s assessment and, where consent was given, made referrals for these assessments. They also told us they provided carers with information about the support available to them.

At the last inspection in March 2025, we had found that waiting lists for access to treatment were sometimes long. Large numbers of patients were awaiting interventions within Mental Health Together for 90+ days and there was no process to contact patients whilst waiting. This meant that a patient’s risk to themselves or others could increase, or their mental health could get worse, without the service knowing and being able to put necessary plans in place to support them.

At this assessment we found the teams to be using a dashboard for oversight of waiting lists. Since the last inspection, the waiting lists were now being managed effectively in the South Kent Coast team. The managers had a good understanding of the data management system, but this was not fully implemented across all locations and was still new to the other teams. Across all sites the system was monitored on a weekly basis in a productivity meeting. This was also monitored on a daily basis in the flow meetings; a dedicated member of staff was allocated to follow up on any patients that had been open with no contact in 4 weeks. Patients that had not been contacted for a significant period of time was also then flagged up in the integrated performance and quality report meeting (IQPR). The introduction of the Power BI system appeared to have a positive impact on teams' ability to understand their localities data.

We did not look at Delivering evidence-based care and treatment during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Effective.

We did not look at How staff, teams and services work together during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Effective.

We did not look at Supporting people to live healthier lives during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Effective.

We did not look at Monitoring and improving outcomes during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Effective.

We did not look at Consent to care and treatment during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Effective.