Mental health trust's acute wards need improvement

Inspectors found the wards did not always have enough staff to meet safety needs, but most patients told them staff were kind and supportive

A mental health trust has been told to improve its acute inpatient wards and psychiatric intensive care units after inspectors found previous recommendations on people's safety had not been met.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) visited Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust’s wards at Fulbourn House, Cambridge, and the Cavell Centre, in Peterborough.

Inspectors found they did not always have enough staff to meet safety needs, despite a recruitment campaign. It was noted, however, that most patients told them staff were kind and supportive.

The trust's interim chief nurse Rachel Gomm said "progress had been made since the last inspection", but it accepted there was "work to do".

'Racial abuse'

As well as providing inpatient care, the trust's services include community mental health treatment for adults, children and older people, and its overall good rating remains in place.

Stuart Dunn, CQC deputy director of operations in the East of England, said: “When we inspected the trust’s acute wards, we found the service hadn’t made all the improvements we recommended at our last inspection in October 2022 to keep people safe.

"The service wasn’t always sharing lessons from safety incidents between different wards, and we found observation records weren’t always updated accurately or quickly, risking people’s needs being missed."

While the acute wards and PICU are rated as a single service, the inspectors only examined the trust’s acute wards for working-age adults.

The inspection was partly prompted by concerns shared with the CQC over the service "not always learning from incidents affecting people’s safety".

Other areas criticised by the CQC included:

• Staff feeling unable to report receiving verbal racial abuse from their patients because they did not feel this would result in any change

• People's care records were not always up-to-date

• Patients were given daily opportunities to raise concerns, but inspectors saw no record of leaders acting on that feedback

The service was again rated requires improvement for safety.

More positively, it was again rated good for being effective, caring, and responsive.

The CQC praised the "person-centred care adapted to people’s individual needs".

They also found people felt involved in care decisions and noted the improvements to the wards to keep people safe since the last inspection and saw the wards were clean and tidy.

The inspectorate said it will monitor the service closely with further inspections.

Ms Gomm said: “Our staff have worked incredibly hard to improve the care and treatment available on our inpatient mental health wards.

"While we fully accept there is still work to do, it is my firm belief that we are heading in the right direction.

"The support we offer to patients and their families is key, and we appreciate the many kind and supportive comments patients have made about their daily interactions with our staff."