Walsall mental health hospital told to improve following unannounced inspection

The Care Quality Commission has rated Dorothy Pattison Hospital as ‘requires improvement’ following an unannounced visit in May last year but also found pockets of improvements since its previous inspection.

Inspectors visited two wards at Dorothy Pattison Hospital, Ambleside, which is a 21-bed female ward and Langdale which is a 21-bed male ward.

It was prompted by concerns raised with CQC around management of the medical team and a poor culture where staff couldn’t speak up, but these weren’t substantiated at inspection.

Two main concerns they found was that the hospital wasn’t a smoke-free site with the garden areas having cigarette ends and litter in there.

Inspectors noted the hospital plans to become a smoke-free site in the future.

Also, signs had been removed from doors during decorating but sharp edges were left exposed which people could use to hurt themselves.

They added although ward areas were clean, some areas looked shabby or damaged and needed replacing.

But in more positive news, they said leaders understood the service and had the relevant skills and experience to carry out their role. They were aware of risks and took steps to manage these.

The rating for how safe the service is remains requires improvement while the rating for how well-led the service is has improved from requires improvement to good.

This inspection didn’t look at how effective, caring and responsive the service is. How effective and responsive the service is remain rated as requires improvement from the previous inspection, while how caring the service is remains rated as good.

Andy Brand, CQC deputy director of operations in the Midlands, said: “We clearly saw that Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust had made improvements in how management oversaw the service since our previous report.

“However, leaders still have work to do to make changes to support the trust’s caring staff with good processes and systems to support them to keep people safe and wards running effectively.

“Leaders needed to update ward environments as some areas were very cluttered, which was a health and safety risk for people using services and staff.

“People who had previously been staying on a ward sometimes left belongings behind, which were now spilling out from storage rooms.

“Leaders need to create a process for staff to follow to keep the ward environments tidy and uncluttered.

“Some staff hadn’t completed their mandatory training. This included training essential for their roles, such as Mental Capacity Act, Mental Health Act and basic life support courses.

“The trust told us that all staff were booked in for the required training in the following months.

“Staff felt supported and listened to and were confident raising concerns.

“Leaders organised discussions following incidents which helped identify learning opportunities and service improvements to reduce the chances of the incident happening again.

“Leaders made sure the service had enough staff and took action to address any shortages. Most bank staff worked on the wards regularly so were familiar with systems, people and their care needs.

“Black Country Healthcare NHS needs to build on the positive findings in this report and focus on making care and the environments safer for people.”

Carolyn Green, Chief Nurse at Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust said: “We welcome the report following the inspection of the two adult acute wards at Dorothy Pattison Hospital and are pleased that inspectors rated the service as ‘good’ for being well-led.

“We are glad to see that staff said they felt supported and listened to and a culture of learning was found by inspectors.

“Staff were reported to be happy in their roles; were confident in raising concerns and thought senior staff promoted a positive culture, which we welcome as a listening and open organisation.

“We recognise that some improvements are needed, and we are committed to deliver these, to provide the best possible service for our patients and working environment for our staff.

“We have improved our training compliance and environmental areas have been addressed.

“We will continue to improve, we are revisiting our tobacco dependency work in pilot areas, and we plan to launch a new approach to smoke free this summer.

“We would like to thank all staff and teams across Dorothy Pattison Hospital who took part in the inspection and look forward to building on the findings of the report.”