Huntercombe Hospital Maidenhead must still improve

Huntercombe Hospital Maidenhead was placed in special measures by the CQC in February and is now rated as requiring improvement

A mental health hospital for young people must still make improvements in several areas, inspectors have said.

Huntercombe Hospital Maidenhead, in Berkshire, cares for children between the ages of 12 and 18.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) said it was inadequate in February but its operator has changed since then and it is now rated as requiring improvement.

Huntercombe Young People Ltd said it was rolling out an "urgent action" plan with a new management team.

Inspectors said though the team had improved morale and the hospital was "cleaner and brighter", staff training was inconsistent and some felt they were not "adequately supported" in their roles.

It found some rooms were "hot and unpleasant" and some ward spaces were too small to accommodate the number of people being cared for in them.

Staffing across the wards was inconsistent, with the same number of staff allocated to a 20-bed ward as a 10-bed ward.

'Working hard'

The hospital has capacity for 59 beds but at the time of the inspection in July could only admit 50 patients because of restrictions on its registration.

The CQC found the hospital had a vacancy rate of 40% for registered nursing staff and that 53% of nursing shifts, between 31 May and 27 June, were covered by agency staff.

Relatives said they had to call wards several times before staff answered the phone and long waits were recorded for some therapies. The waiting time for psychology and family therapy was six weeks and there were "too few" specialists employed at the hospital.

In a statement, Huntercombe Young People Ltd said: "We recognise that significant change was needed at our Maidenhead hospital and we have recently brought in a new leadership team to roll out an urgent action plan.

"We've been working hard and progress has been made to improve the care at the hospital, which has been recognised by our regulators."