Coventry and Warwickshire mental health services criticised by inspectors

All three services were rated as requiring improvement overall, while the overall rating for the trust remained as good, the CQC said

Three mental health services in Coventry and Warwickshire require improvement, an inspection has found.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) visited Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Partnership Trust last summer.

It found out-of-date records, safeguarding alerts not being responded to and some monitoring systems not being followed.

The trust said it welcomed the report and its findings, and accepted more work needed to be done.

Inspectors assessed community mental health services for people with a learning disability or autism, long-stay or rehabilitation mental health wards for adults, and acute wards for adults and psychiatric intensive care units.

All three were rated as requiring improvement overall, although the overall rating for the trust remained good.

Inspectors reported that staff did not keep up-to-date and accurate care records for all people with a learning disability or autism using community mental health services.

Safeguarding alerts within the acute wards for adults and psychiatric intensive care units were not being responded to correctly and there were no systems in place to monitor, develop and train locum doctors that were employed for extended periods of time.

However, safety incidents were well-managed and managers investigated incidents and shared lessons learned with all staff.

Overall, services had a positive culture and were keen to improve with safe and clean wards, the CQC said.

Restricted items

Amanda Lyndon, CQC deputy director of operations in the Midlands, said they found a "hardworking and caring workforce", but there were areas where leaders needed to make improvements.

"For example, staff raised concerns about long-term staff absences causing increased waiting times for people requiring physiotherapy and occupational therapy," she said.

"Two people had been waiting for urgent physiotherapy for over three months."

Inspectors also raised concerns about restricted items after an incident where someone had access to a lighter which was a potential fire risk.

The CQC said it will monitor the trust to ensure improvements were implemented.

In a statement, Mary Mumvuri, chief nursing officer and deputy chief executive of the trust, said: "The CQC conducted inspections of three of the trust's core services in July and August 2023, and we welcome the report and its findings.

"As a trust, we had instigated a series of quality improvement programmes, and we were pleased to see the CQC report identified the positive impact of this work, that the services had a positive culture and were keen to improve, and that all services were rated 'good' for caring."

More work was needed around record keeping and safeguarding, she added, and the trust will continue to work with the CQC.