Warning issued to a hospital trust over poor mental health care

A warning notice has been issued to a hospital trust after inspectors said care given to people with mental health needs, learning disabilities or autism needs to drastically improve.

Last week, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) investigated medicine, surgery and critical care at the Freeman Hospital and the Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI) in Newcastle, in a bid to examine the quality of care provided to people with mental health needs, a learning disability or autistic people across the services.

In addition to looking into medicine, surgery and critical care, experts also inspected urgent and emergency care and maternity services at the RVI.

Following this, CQC have given the Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust a warning notice to make ‘significant and immediate’ improvements to the quality of care being provided.

Sarah Dronsfield, CQC Deputy Director of Operations in the North, said: ‘When we visited The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, we found staff working hard under pressure, and having kind and caring interactions with people in the services we visited.

‘However, the trust didn’t have effective systems and processes in place to ensure people with a mental health need, a learning disability or autistic people received care that met their needs.’

The CQC inspection found the trust failed to have effective systems and processes in place to ensure people consented to their treatment and ensure staff adhered to the requirements of the Mental Capacity Act – a law that claims every adult, whatever their disability, has the right to make their own decisions wherever possible.

Experts also discovered staff within the trust did not maintain complete and appropriate records to evidence adherence to the Mental Health Act.

However, CQC did note that staff across the trust performed compassionate, caring interactions for people with a mental health need, learning disability or autism.

The CQC carried out an unannounced inspection in November and December last year, but did not re-rate services meaning the trust still remains ‘outstanding’ overall.

Photo by Marcel Strauß