Some psychiatric care wards at Peterborough's Cavell Centre 'not always safe,' CQC says

Safety improvements are needed at psychiatric care wards at Peterborough’s Cavell Centre and Fulbourn Hospital in Cambridge, the The Care Quality Commission (CQC) have said.

The CQC visited the acute wards for working age adults and psychiatric intensive care units (PICU) at Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust earlier this year.

While the acute wards and PICU are rated as a single service, this inspection only examined the trust’s acute wards. These are based at Fulbourn Hospital in Cambridge and the Cavell Centre in Peterborough

Not enough staff

The inspection was prompted in part by concerns shared with CQC about the service not always learning from incidents affecting people’s safety. This inspection focused specifically on areas relevant to the concerns received.

Inspectors gave the wards an overall rating of ‘Requires Improvement’ in their inspection.

They said that there was not always enough staff to meet people’s needs safely, and that some staff told them they’d received verbal racial abuse from people in their care but didn’t feel reporting these incidents would result in any change.

Inspectors also found that people’s care records weren’t always up-to-date, and some people didn’t have a copy of their own records, and that people were given daily opportunities to raise concerns, but inspectors saw no record of leaders acting on people’s feedback from these meetings. Some people’s carers didn’t feel listened to.

However, Rachel Gomm, Interim Chief Nurse at Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, said improvements were being made, and it was her ‘firm belief’ the trust was heading in the right direction.

“Not all staff had the training they needed"

Stuart Dunn, CQC deputy director of operations in the East of England, said: “When we inspected the trust’s acute wards, we found the service hadn’t made all the improvements we recommended at our last inspection in October 2022 to keep people safe. The service wasn’t always sharing lessons from safety incidents between different wards, and we found observation records weren’t always updated accurately or quickly, risking people’s needs being missed.

“We also found that there weren’t always enough staff to meet people’s needs safely, and not all staff had the training they needed. However, the service was carrying out a proactive recruitment campaign, and we did see leaders ensured agency staff were familiar with the people they cared for.

“We also saw staff provided person-centred care adapted to people’s individual needs, and most people told us staff were kind and supportive.

“We’ve shared our findings with the trust so they know where improvements are needed. We’ll continue to monitor this service closely, including through further inspections.”

Wards were clean and tidy

Improvements were found on the wards, with the report saying: “Most people gave positive feedback on the service, noting staff were kind and they felt involved in care decisions.

“The service had made improvements to ward environments to better keep people safe since CQC’s last inspection, and inspectors saw wards were clean and tidy.”

“It is my firm belief that we are heading in the right direction"

Rachel Gomm, Interim Chief Nurse at Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, said: “It is important to acknowledge the progress that has been made since the last inspection by the Care Quality Commission. Our staff have worked incredibly hard to improve the care and treatment available on our inpatient mental health wards.

“While we fully accept there is still work to do, it is my firm belief that we are heading in the right direction. The support we offer to patients and their families is key, and we appreciate the many kind and supportive comments patients have made about their daily interactions with our staff.

“Inpatient mental health care is an important part of our organisation’s work, alongside this we also provide community mental health treatment for adults, children’s mental health services, community physical health care for older people and those with long term conditions, children’s health services, learning disability services and conduct ground-breaking research.

“Our overall CQC rating remains ‘good’.”

The report is available at the CQC website https://www.cqc.org.uk/provider/RT1