Outstanding turn around at hospital

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) award the highest-possible grade to The Spinney after a visit to check up on key areas of care which had previously required improvement.

Inspectors visited the Atherton facility to check if management had put into place action plans drawn up to make sure it delivered safe, person-centred care.

The staff’s efforts in boosting this area of care up to good level moved the Everest Road hospital to outstanding as it previously had two outstanding and two good features in the CQC’s key criteria.

In the report’s overall summary the inspectors said: “We inspected The Spinney to check whether improvements had been made. We visited all the forensic wards and the psychiatric intensive care unit. We found areas of good practice.

“As managers had made the improvements within six months we re-rated the safe key question from requires improvement to good.

“This also led to an overall rating of outstanding for The Spinney as the caring and responsive key questions were previously rated as outstanding and all other key questions rated as good.”

The Spinney cares for people whose rights are restricted under the Mental Health Act, with many residents having learning and physical disabilities, mental health conditions, sensory impairments and problems with drug misuse.

The inspectors noted risk assessments were completed when residents were admitted and updated on an ongoing basis and the wards were clean and well-maintained with ligature risks managed.

Staff had received new guidelines on de-escalating situations involving disturbed behaviour in the observation lounges and the management of medication had been improved. High-dose antipsychotic medication was also being closely checked by both employees and managers.

Restraint was only used at a low level and was being monitored and lessons were being learned from incidents at the hospital.

The inspectors also found staff were receiving mandatory training and there were enough people working at The Spinney, with only a few agency employees being used and low sickness rates.

Partnerships in Care, which owns The Spinney, expressed its delight at the CQC’s findings.

Operations director Mike Bennett said: “We are extremely proud that The Spinney has been marked as Outstanding by the CQC. This is as a result of tireless work by our committed staff.”

However, the CQC ensured staff will not be able to rest on their laurels as the inspectors also found some areas where improvement is still needed.

The inspection found patients on two wards were subject to restrictions on accessing their bedrooms, although this is being resolved, and there were some delays in doctors attending episodes of seclusion out of hours.

The CQC also found limited recording of the benefits and risks of high-dose antipsychotics when patients refused health checks and some wards did not have the ligature risk assessment easily available for all employees.