By Oliver Thompson
The ruling from the latest Quality Care Commission states that whilst there has been an improvement, mental health services for children & young people ‘requires improvement’.
The government watchdog has inspected South West Yorkshire Partnership Trust, which includes practices at Dewsbury and Holmfirth. The consequent report rated the overall services as ‘good’ which is a significant improvement from their last inspection, for which the trust was rated a ‘requires improvement’.
In the sub-categories, there were two areas that required improvement:
- Acute wards for adults of working age and psychiatric intensive care units ‘requires improvement.
- Specialist Community mental health services for children and young people.
In the reasons why the QCC rated the specialist community mental health service for children & young people, the report stated:
“…The service did not actively monitor children and young people on waiting lists to detect and respond to increases in the level of risk.
“…Children and young people were waiting over 18 weeks to receive treatment in some areas. Across the service, four team’s referral to treatment times exceeded 18 weeks.”
“…There were staffing gaps in the rotas as there were not enough staff to cover all responsibilities.”
However, the QCC did praise: “Clinical premises where children and young people were seen were safe and clean… The staff ensured that children and young people who required urgent care were seen promptly.
“The service had identified issues with long waiting lists for intensive treatment and gaps in commissioning and were working to resolve these…
“They were implementing new service models to better meet the needs of people using the service and were working with commissioners to get additional funding and a clear service specification.”
The inspection ran between 08 May to 12 June 2019 and usually publishes reports yearly.
For more information on the report see https://www.cqc.org.uk/provider/RXG