Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust downgraded

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has told Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust it must make the improvements after downgrading the rating of the trust.

The trust runs local community services and mental health care including the Minor Injury Units (MIUs) across Worcestershire. 

The inspection took place between February and June last year and covered three mental health services, a community health service and how well led the trust was overall.

TRUST RUN: Worcester City Inpatient Unit (Image: Newsquest)

This inspection sees the overall rating of the trust drop from good to requires improvement.

The inspection found:

• Acute wards for adults of working age and psychiatric intensive care units – the overall rating, as well as well-led, have improved from inadequate to requires improvement. Effective, caring and responsive have dropped from good to requires improvement. It was again rated inadequate for being safe.
• Community-based mental health services of adults of working age – overall, together with safe and well-led have improved from inadequate to requires improvement. The ratings for effective and caring has improved from requires improvement to good. Responsive has again been rated requires improvement.
• Mental health crisis services and health-based places of safety – the overall rating has dropped from good to requires improvement, which is the same for safe and well-led. Effective, caring and responsive were again rated good.

• Community health services for adults - the overall rating has dropped from good to requires improvement, which is the same for safe, effective and well-led. Caring and responsive were again rated good.

The overall rating for Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust has gone down from good to requires improvement overall.

TRUST RUN: Malvern Community Trust (Image: Newsquest)

The same rating was given to how safe, effective and well-led the trust is overall.

Caring and responsive were again rated good.

Craig Howarth, CQC deputy director of operations in the Midlands, said: "When we visited Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust we found leaders had the experience, knowledge and capability to carry out their roles.

"However, they didn’t always work collaboratively, which filtered down to front-line staff, having further reaching impact across the trust. 

“We were concerned about sexual safety issues in two of the mental health services. It took staff two months to update records for a person who’d been involved in a sexual safety incident.

"We will continue to monitor the service closely, so we can be sure people using the service receive the care they have a right to expect.”

The report is to be published on the CQC website, cqc.org.uk, on Friday, January 19. 

Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust was contacted for comment.