CQC rates Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust’s acute wards that care for people in mental health crisis as ‘requires improvement’

Wards dealing with adults in mental health crisis including from the Fenland area have been found wanting by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

The CQC has rated the acute wards for working-age adults and psychiatric intensive care units (PICU) at Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust as requiring improvement following an inspection in March.

These wards provide care and treatment for people experiencing a mental health episode that can't be managed in a less restrictive setting owing to the degree of risk, clinical need, or patient choice. These services include urgent, emergency, and planned care.

While the acute wards and PICU are rated as a single service, this inspection only examined the trust’s acute wards.

These are based at Fulbourn Hospital in Cambridge and the Cavell Centre in Peterborough.

This inspection was prompted in part by concerns shared with CQC about the service not always learning from incidents affecting people’s safety. This inspection focused specifically on areas relevant to the concerns received.

As well as being again rated requires improvement overall, the service was also again rated requires improvement for being safe.

It has again been rated good for effective, caring, and responsive. This inspection did not look at how well-led the service is, so this remains rated as requires improvement.

Stuart Dunn, CQC deputy director of operations in the East of England, said: “When we inspected the trust’s acute wards, we found the service hadn’t made all the improvements we recommended at our last inspection in October 2022 to keep people safe.

“The service wasn’t always sharing lessons from safety incidents between different wards, and we found observation records weren’t always updated accurately or quickly, risking people’s needs being missed.

“We also found that there weren’t always enough staff to meet people’s needs safely, and not all staff had the training they needed. However, the service was carrying out a proactive recruitment campaign, and we did see leaders ensure agency staff were familiar with the people they cared for.

“We also saw staff provided person-centred care adapted to people’s individual needs, and most people told us staff were kind and supportive.

“We’ve shared our findings with the trust so they know where improvements are needed. We’ll continue to monitor this service closely, including through further inspections.”

Inspectors also found:

• Some staff said they’d received verbal racial abuse from people in their care but didn’t feel reporting these incidents would result in any change. This isn’t acceptable, and leaders must act to ensure all staff have a safe working environment.

• People’s care records weren’t always up-to-date, and some people didn’t have a copy of their own.

• People were given daily opportunities to raise concerns, but inspectors saw no record of leaders acting on people’s feedback from these meetings. Some people’s carers didn’t feel listened to.

However:

• Most people gave positive feedback on the service, noting staff were kind and they felt involved in care decisions.

• The service had made improvements to ward environments to better keep people safe since CQC’s last inspection, and inspectors saw wards were clean and tidy.

The report will be published on CQC’s website today.