The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has published its report into its recent inspection of core services at the Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership (AWP) NHS Trust.
The AWP Trust retains its previous overall ‘Requires Improvement’ rating, however there have been improvements in the ratings for specialist community mental health services for children and young people and wards for people with a learning disability or autism, which are now both rated as Good.
Acute wards for adults of working age and psychiatric intensive care units remain as Requires Improvement.
Dominic Hardisty, Chief Executive for AWP said: “We welcome the inspection process and are pleased that the areas assessed either improved or remained the same in their rating.
“I am delighted to see the improvements in the ratings awarded for our Daisy ward and specialist community mental health services for children and young people.
“There was also clear evidence of the hard work, dedication and commitment of our staff, who work tirelessly to support those in need of our care.
“The inspections found our staff treat patients with compassion and kindness, respecting their privacy and dignity and supporting their individual needs.
“I would like to thank all our staff for their hard work and commitment to patients, service users and families in improving standards of care.
“There is genuine commitment to continuously improving the quality of care we deliver. We however know that there are some areas that we need to focus on to continually improve staff, service users and carers’ experience of our services and make AWP truly Outstanding.”
Karen Bennett-Wilson CQC’s Head of Inspection for Mental Health in the South, said: “Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust has worked steadily to embed a number of the improvements we requested at our last inspection. I want to congratulate them for this work.
“I am particularly pleased that during this inspection we were able to record improvements in the wards for people with a learning disability or autism, including the Daisy Unit, which are now rated as Good where previously we had rated them as Inadequate.”
Charlotte Hitchings, Chair of AWP, added: “AWP continues to make progress in how our services are shaped and delivered.
“This is positive news and we will continue to focus on how to further improve through our Quality Improvement (QI) programme.
“I would really like to thank the staff and service users who helped us to prepare for the inspection.”
The Well Led inspection of the AWP Trust was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The CQC is only able to update findings on well-led at the overall trust level or update the other trust-level ratings when the well-led component has been inspected.
As a result, the ratings for the overall trust and five key questions included in the report are from the previous inspection.
You can read the full report here.