Mental health acute wards need improvement - CQC

An NHS trust has been told it needs to improve a mental health hospital's acute wards and psychiatric intensive care units in an inspection report.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated the units at Mill View Hospital in Hove, run by Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, as "requires improvement" after an inspection in May 2024.

The commission said it paid an "unannounced and focussed" visit after receiving "information of concern" about the safety and quality of the service.

Teresa Barker, Sussex Partnership's chief nursing officer, said the trust has "made significant improvements since the inspection took place".

At the time of the inspection, the trust had five acute wards for adults of working age and psychiatric intensive care units at Mill View, the CQC said.

Regency ward and Caburn ward were visited during the assessment.

Serena Coleman, CQC deputy director of operations in the south, said: "Staff weren't always managing environmental risks to people's safety... with some ligature risks in the bathrooms on Regency ward and, on Caburn, areas without clear lines of sight enabling staff to observe people were safe.

"Staff didn't always report incidents or near-misses, which meant they couldn't be properly investigated, while people gave us mixed feedback about how safe they felt."

She said some people described the wards as "noisy and chaotic" and shared concerns about "illicit drug use and access to harmful objects".

There were also said to be failures when it came to staff de-escalating patients' distress prior to using physical restraint.

"In addition, staff didn't always follow the trust's policies to manage medicines and people's care plans and risk assessments lacked detail," added Ms Coleman.

However, the CQC report did find both wards "fully staffed, with the right roles to meet people's needs and ensure they had consistent care", along with "a good multidisciplinary team who worked well, both together and with partner organisations, to improve people's outcomes".

Having been informed of the findings, the CQC said the trust "paused admissions to address the immediate safety issues" and have since informed CQC that they have "started to make progress on these".

The hospital has been rated as requiring overall improvement - the same as in its previous inspection.

It has been rated as good in the well-led category and the trust's overall rating remains good.

Ms Barker said the trust's staff have worked "incredibly hard to embed their improvements", which included "strengthening our medicine management process, education and training, and care planning."

She said the trust valued the CQC's "expertise and scrutiny in helping us maintain standards on behalf of the patients, carers and local communities we serve".

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