Services 'on mend' following check-up

A TRUST which provides healthcare services across Oldham was found to "require improvement" in its latest review.

It follows an unannounced inspection of the mental health, community and hospital services provided by Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust.

Safety, effectiveness and leadership at the trust, which provides services in Oldham, Rochdale, Middleton and other areas of Greater Manchester, required improvement according to the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

But praise was given to the trust for its overall care and responsiveness, rewarded by a "good" rating in both categories and an "outstanding" rating for its child and adolescent mental health wards.

Missed

The trust said they will be working with services and the CQC to develop an action plan to address the areas for improvement.

At a local level, the government health watchdog raised concerns over missed targets in relation to waiting times for Oldham's stroke patients.

The report released said: "From January 2015 to May 2016, the majority of stroke patients referred to the Oldham service did not meet the two-week target for first appointment.

"The 95-per-cent target was met on four occasions, with the average number of patients receiving a timely service between nought per cent and 33 per cent of the time."

Inspectors also found that Oldham children nutritional and dietetics service lacked up-to-date risk assessments and care plans.

Deputy chief inspector of hospitals for mental health Dr Paul Lelliot said of the report: "Overall we rated six of 16 services as 'requires improvement'.

"We were concerned that guidance on same-sex accommodation was breached in a number of wards.

"We found concerns with the levels of training.

"Staff were not following the trust's own policies to manage medicines in a number of services and we also found restrictions on patients' liberty which had not been properly addressed.

"I note that across the trust bed occupancy has been very high and this has meant a number of patients having to be admitted to units out of the area."

However, inspectors found outstanding practice among the Oldham specialist palliative care team where the Bangladeshi and Pakistani community were approached over end of life care.

Caring

They said: "People we met spoke positively about the care they received.

"On the whole we found staff who were respectful, caring and had a professional attitude towards their patients."

Pennine Care informed the CQC that they would take action to improve services following the inspection and another review will be carried out to ensure improvements are made.

Chief executive Mr McCourt said: "The stroke service has experienced high demand and practitioners are working hard to see patients in a timely manner.

"However, meeting the two-week target has been a pressure but the Trust is closely monitoring performance and taking steps to address it.

"[The lack of up-to-date care plans] was identified in two patient records looked at by the CQC and the trust acted immediately to address the issue.

"Clearly, the trust would always aspire to achieve outstanding or good for the care it provides and this was achieved by the vast majority of services inspected across all five domains.

"It should be commended that 90 per cent of services were rated as good or outstanding for care and the report highlighted that staff were on the whole responsive, respectful and caring and professional in their attitudes and worked to support the patients.

"However, there are a number of services that were rated as requires improvement and we will take the issues raised seriously and act swiftly to make changes.

"This is a reflection of the immense challenges we continue to face in providing complex care to the most vulnerable of people and we need to work together with our patients, partners and commissioners to make demonstrable improvements."