Sheffield NHS trust addressing Care Quality Commission concerns on standards

Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust provides a range of mental health and learning disability services, employing around 2,600 staff. The trust’s annual quality report will be discussed next Thursday (June 6) at a meeting of Sheffield City Council’s health scrutiny sub-committee.

The trust has been assessed by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) as ‘requires improvement’, with the same grading for all areas judged, apart from ‘caring’, which has a rating of good.

The report says that the trust ran a ‘back to good’ programme of improvements last year, which has now been shortlisted for an NHS award.

During 2023/24, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) conducted five routine, unannounced visits to the trust’s in-patient areas, in order to review its compliance with mental health legislation.

Services visited were Dovedale 1 and Burbage wards at the Michael Carlisle Centre in Nether Edge, Forest Lodge in Oughtibridge and Maple and Endcliffe wards at the Northern General Hospital Longley Centre.

Gaps

The report says: “The CQC identified some gaps in practice which they have asked the trust to remedy. Patients not being fully involved in the creation and review of their care plans was a gap raised on several visits.

“Other gaps of particular significance include insufficient recording, high use of bank/agency staff and occasions when medication had been given when it had not been certified to be given.

“The CQC raised a particular concern about the care provided to a particular in-patient and mental capacity legislation not being followed.” The organisation continued to monitor the situation to ensure that “appropriate steps were being taken to ensure the patient’s care and rights were being met and promoted”.

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The report says the trust has devised action plans to remedy any gaps found which have been submitted to the CQC.

It notes: “A range of positive feedback was also provided [to] the trust following on from these CQC visits. For example, some patients reported feeling they were being looked after well, and some carers said staff kept them up-to-date and engaged them in their relative’s care.

“Some patients described staff as being friendly and supportive, and said they felt safe on their ward. Some carers said the care provided to their relative was good and staff were supportive, and that they felt listened to by staff.

“Some carers fed back that staff were flexible, where possible, in respect of visits.”

Safety

The trust has also set new priorities for areas of work that need improvement. These are understanding and improvement of sexual safety for service users, particularly for in-patient areas, ensuring patient-centred care is delivered for neurodivergent users with conditions such as autism and developing new reporting tools.

The last priority will involve service users working on co-designing a patient experience dashboard to ensure that their views are at the centre of changes.

A ‘freedom to speak up’ programme is helping to ensure that staff feel they are able to voice concerns and are encouraged to do so. A freedom to speak up guardian gives staff feedback on their concerns and supports them, the report says.

It adds that all clinical concerns are raised with a senior manager so that learning can be shared.