MPFT’s acute older adult service is an inpatient service where people aged 65 and over with mental health issues are cared for. The service includes inpatient wards based at St George’s Hospital in Stafford and The Redwoods Centre in Shrewsbury.
During the inspection, where the CQC inspected against the ‘safe’, ‘caring’ and ‘well-led’ domains, inspectors found that the service provides safe care to patients, has enough nurses and doctors and that wards are safe and clean.
How effective and responsive the service is wasn’t rated on this occasion and therefore remain rated outstanding and good respectively.
The CQC additionally recognised that teams within the service have access to the full range of specialists required to meet the needs of patients, appropriate training and supervision, and staff demonstrated working well as a multidisciplinary team.
Neil Carr, MPFT Chief Executive said: “As an organisation we are very pleased by the results from the CQC’s recent inspection into wards for older people with mental health problems and are delighted that they have again rated the service as ‘Good’.
“In their report the CQC recognise the hard work of staff to provide compassion and personalised high quality care to the people they care for. The report recognises the service’s holistic approach to care planning, the commitment of staff to work proactively with patients and their families regarding decisions about their care and the ability of staff to assess and manage risk.”
Mr Carr added: “As a Trust we are committed to learning and improving and significant work has taken place to share areas of good practice to improve patient care. I am delighted that this has been recognised in the CQC’s report.”
The CQC’s report includes two actions which they recommend should be implemented by the Trust. These relate to fully recording the rationale for restrictive intervention and ensuring medicines are stored at the correct temperatures. Both of these actions have been reviewed by the Trust and improvements plans are in place.