Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust

On this page

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

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

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

The service mostly treated people with kindness, compassion and respect, supporting positive relationships between staff and people using the service. Most people spoke positively about their experiences of care across the crisis and home treatment services and described staff as kind, patient and respectful. Our observations during appointments, home visits and handover meetings supported this feedback. Staff spoke about people in a respectful way and demonstrated a good understanding of people’s personal, social and cultural needs, which helped people feel listened to and supported at a difficult time.

People told us staff communicated well and involved them in decisions about their treatment, including discussions about medicines, side effects and psychological therapies. Staff signposted people to other services to meet wider needs, such as substance misuse services, talking therapies and employment support. Staff responded well to people’s immediate needs through daily planning and handover meetings, flexible visiting arrangements and effective coordination with other teams. People said they were able to contact crisis services when needed and that staff attended appointments as planned.

Staff wellbeing was mostly supported through supervision, appraisal and opportunities for reflective practice. However, ongoing workload pressures linked to vacancies, sickness and working across large geographical areas affected staff capacity. Some staff did not feel consistently supported by senior leaders. Despite these challenges, staff remained committed to providing caring and compassionate support.

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.

People we spoke with were mainly positive about support they had received from staff across the service. Most people told us staff treated them with kindness and respect. Staff we spoke with across all teams wanted to provide the best care they could to people accessing services. Staff spoke respectfully of people using the service.

People who used the service gave examples of when staff had directed them to other services for support. These included substance misuse services, talking therapies and employment support.

We observed staff treating people with kindness, compassion, dignity and patience during our assessment, during appointments and home visits. During handover meetings, we saw that staff had a good understanding of people’s personal, social and cultural needs.

We reviewed the trusts collected feedback “I want great Care” for the crisis and home treatment services over the period between April 2025 – March 2026. Overall, the feedback was positive, with many people expressing gratitude for care and support received. This was reflective of feedback we received from people using the service, and our own observations.

Staff did their best to work flexibly with people when arranging follow up visits. Many staff gave us examples across the teams where they offered appointments at a team base, or in people’s homes. Appointments and follow up visits were arranged with the person, at a time that was convenient for them.

The service did not always demonstrate they treated people as individuals, making sure people’s care, support and treatment met their needs and preferences.

The health-based place of safety (HBPoS) and the psychiatric clinical decisions unit was accessible for people with a disability, located on the ground floor. People admitted to the HBPoS were asked about specific requirements and preferences, for example around diet. Staff were able to access a range of foods to accommodate individual needs.

Staff did not always record details of individual requirement and protected characteristics on the patients’ records. Staff told us the relevant sections would be completed on entry to the services if specific considerations were required, such as if an interpreter was required, or if somebody had hearing difficulties.

Training in working with people with learning disabilities and autism was mandatory. At the time of our assessment, 100% of staff had completed tier 1 training. Compliance with tier 2 training was between 70% and 100%, which was above the trusts target.

The service promoted people’s independence, so people knew their rights and had choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing.

Patients told us they had some control over their care and treatment. Overall, people spoke positively about staff communication and being given some choices about potential therapies and treatment options. People told us staff supported them to receive the support they needed in the community where possible.

Staff encouraged people to maintain their independence and supported them to manage their health and wellbeing in the community, preventing an inpatient admission, where possible.

Patients were given information and advice about medicines prescribed and potential side effects, as well as being informed of psychological therapies and strategies which may help them. The teams had access to a range of health care professionals such as occupational therapists, social workers, nurses and doctors. People could be seen by a variety of staff, dependent on their individual needs.

The service listened to and understood people’s needs, views and wishes. Staff responded to people’s needs and acted to minimise any discomfort, concern or distress.

We observed a handover and daily planning meeting across the home treatment teams. Staff identified and responded to the changing needs of people on the caseload. All teams had a process in place to ensure people on the caseload were reviewed regularly. Planning meetings each day enabled plans to be rearranged if a change to a treatment plan was needed. Teams were flexible and could increase the number of visits needed, to provide people with the levels of support they needed.

Teams across the service communicated with other teams as and when required, for example to arrange a joint visit with the community mental health team, or to arrange a medical review with the doctor.

People we spoke with who had used or were using the service, told us that they could contact crisis services when they needed to. People also told us that staff turned up for appointments when they said they would.

The service did not always care about and promote the wellbeing of their staff. They did not always support or enable staff to deliver person-centred care.

Staff across the service told us they received supervision, and had an annual appraisal, during which they discussed further development. All teams told us reflective practice was strongly encouraged and facilitated, particularly after significant incidents.

Staff told us they had opportunities in learning and development, supported by the trust. We spoke to staff who had been internally promoted and seconded into different positions. Some staff reported making time to complete mandatory training difficult on occasions due to workload.

Over the previous 12-month period, the trust reported an overall sickness rate of 8% across this service, which is higher than the national average. However, it is important to acknowledge that 4 out of the 6 teams were below the national average at 5.1%. The higher sickness rates were among the smaller teams. The reasons for sickness reported was for general short term physical health problems, such as the flu. Some longer-term sickness had been reported to be mental health related. Managers followed procedures when staff were off sick to check in with them regularly and offer support, for example through occupational health. Staff who had been on long-term sick leave could have a phased return to work, planned with them. In the most recent staff survey, 50% of respondents indicated they had felt unwell due to stress relating to their work.

Staff we spoke with reported feeling well supported within their immediate teams but did not consistently feel supported by senior management. Many staff described the impact of vacant posts and periods of sickness absence on daily workloads, which they felt increased pressure to complete their work to a high standard.

Across all Crisis and Home Treatment Teams, staff raised concerns about the time available to complete visits and associated documentation. Staff were allocated a four-hour timeframe for each visit, which included travel to the person's home, undertaking assessments and interventions, returning to office, and completing clinical documentation. Staff told us that this timeframe was not always sufficient, particularly given the large, allocated geographical areas covered by some teams, unpredictable traffic and the complexity of people's needs. Staff told us these concerns had previously been raised but did not feel that sufficient action had been taken to address them.