Mental health wards told to improve upgraded to 'good'

Child and adolescent mental health wards at a Greater Manchester hospital that had been ordered to improve has been rated as "good" by health inspectors.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has upgraded the rating of the service at Cheadle Royal Hospital's child and adolescent mental health wards after an inspection in April.

The hospital, run by Affinity Healthcare Limited, provides a range of inpatient mental health services for young people between 11-17 and adults. The inspection followed the receipt of information of concern, the CQC said.

CQC inspectors found the hospital had made necessary improvements and was now only in breach of one regulation related to safe care and treatment.

At the previous inspection, inspectors found five breaches of regulation.

At the time of this latest review, the CQC said there were six young people admitted to the main ward and one young person in long-term segregation on another ward, which was not in general use.

Inspectors carried out a tour of the Woodlands and Featherstone wards as well as the clinic room and the ward seclusion suite.

The CQC upgraded its rating for how responsive and well-led the service was from "required improvement" to "good", and has again rated how effective and caring the service is as good.

The report found:

• Staff treated young people with compassion and kindness, respected their privacy and dignity and involved them and their families in planning their care
• Leaders had a good understanding of how the ward was run and were visible and approachable to both staff and young people
• The ward met people's needs well as staff, managed people's cases effectively, they did not move young people between wards unnecessarily and they supported people to leave hospital as soon as they were well enough to do so
• Staff supported young people with discharge planning, working closely with community teams and commissioners to help them move on to suitable placements.
• Staff assessed young people's physical and mental health needs thoroughly on admission and reviewed their care plans regularly to reflect any changes.

However the inspectors also noted:

• Staff did not always store medicines safely, putting some young people at risk of receiving medicines that were out of date or had not been stored at the correct temperature
• Staff did not always update risk records quickly enough after incidents so important information about a young person's specific risks did not always appear in their care plan
• Some issues with maintenance and infection prevention and control issues in the care environment

The CQC has asked Affinity Healthcare Limited for an action plan in response to the concerns found at this assessment.

The health watchdog's overall rating at Cheadle Royal Hospital has remained the same as "requires improvement".

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