COVENTRY MESSAGE BOARD

England’s chief inspector of hospitals says the services provided by Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust require improvement.

The Care Quality Commission inspected Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust, which provides mental health and community based health services, in April.

A team of inspectors, which included a variety of specialists and experts, visited hospital wards and community based mental health services.

The CQC has rated the trust as requiring improvement overall. It was rated as good for being caring and requires improvement for being safe, effective, responsive and well-led.

CQC’s deputy chief inspector of hospitals and lead for mental health, Dr Paul Lelliott, said: “Our inspectors found the trust must make a number of improvements to bring its services up to a level that would earn a rating of good overall.

“We gave immediate feedback to the trust following the inspection and this report presents the detail of our findings, our ratings and our recommendations.

“In particular we were concerned that the trust was not always doing all that it could to ensure that patients and staff were safe.

“Inspectors found a number of potential ligature points on wards. On one ward that we visited during our inspection, the patient call bells were not working.

“Our inspection also found long waiting times in some community services, with data showing young people in the children and adolescent mental health services had waited for between 24 weeks and over 49 weeks to access treatment."

Mental health care in Coventry and Warwickshire among worst in the country according to survey

The organisation that cares for patients with mental health problems in Coventry and Warwickshire has been named as one of the worst performing in the country.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) said it was writing to Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust and three other trusts that performed “significantly worse” than others when service users were questioned about their experiences.

Across the country the survey of 13,000 people revealed that people’s experiences of being cared for in the community for mental health problems, ranging from depression to psychosis, have not improved since last year.

One in three reported that their overall experience of care was poor and 32% said they did not know who to contact out of office hours if they had a crisis.

Meanwhile, 24% of people who tried to get help during a mental health crisis - including suicidal thoughts, self harming behaviour, panic attacks and psychotic episodes - said they could not get assistance during their time of need.

The Coventry and Warwickshire Trust’s chief executive Simon Gilby defended the organisation, saying they have had feedback suggesting they provide “great care”.