Published on: 9th June 2017
The Lincolnshire based mental health and learning disabilities trust was re-inspected by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in early April and has been given an overall rating of Good.
When the CQC last visited Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust in December 2015, the Trust was rated overall as Requires Improvement. Since then the organisation has had a real focus on continuous quality improvement and inspectors recognised the positive progress that has been made.
During the recent visit the CQC found areas of good practice which included:
- Staff treat patients with kindness, dignity and respect. Their attitudes are consistently helpful and understanding. They are passionate about helping patients with mental illness.
- Staff encourage patients to give feedback via daily ward meetings, patient forums, surveys and other available mechanisms.
- Patients are involved in their care, their goals and aspirations are part of their care plan and they are given a full explanation of the different treatments available. Patients and carers said that they felt listened to, they were treated well and they were taken seriously.
- Staff show strong therapeutic relationships with their patients and clearly understand their needs.
- Patients are involved in projects across the organisation including recruitment, patient involvement groups and peer support work. There are also groups supporting carers.
- Staffing levels across all core services are planned and regularly reviewed.
- The Trust reviews and manages ligature risks within services and each inpatient ward has a system of ‘heat maps’ in place specific to their ward, which helps staff safely manage patients presenting with high risk of self-harm or suicide (a ligature risk is a fixed point which someone could use to harm themselves).
- Senior managers in the trust are visible and the cultural shift within LPFT had enabled the board to show stronger and more charismatic leadership. Staff reported positive morale, job satisfaction and felt empowered in their roles.
- LPFT has a good working relationship with local stakeholders, including the commissioners and the Police.
In common with any inspection there will always be some areas for improvement and the Trust was rated as Requires Improvement for being effective. The areas where the Trust must take action to improve further include delays in accessing psychological therapies, compliance with mandatory training and clinical supervision and quality of risk assessments and care plans. The inspectors also highlighted that LPFT could not always provide a bed locally for patients who require admission to adult acute mental health wards.
Dr John Brewin, Chief Executive said:
I am pleased that the work of all of our staff has been reflected in the Trust moving from Requires Improvement to Good. Our staff have a real focus on providing high quality care for our patients and this latest report is testament to that commitment.
There is a great deal we can be proud of in this report but we are not complacent and will continue to work to improve our services for patients. We know there are areas that we need to focus on in order to enhance our services and provide effective care. Not all of the solutions to the issues identified in the report rest with the Trust alone and we will carry on working with our partners across the health and social care system.
The full report can be found on the Care Quality Commission website: www.cqc.org.uk/provider/RP7
