Agenda item

To receive an update report from the Leicestershire Partnership Trust (LPT) on the progress made with outcomes in QIP since the last meeting.  The Commission will also receive an update on the Second Report of the Care Quality Commission (CQC) as a result of the return inspection of the Bradgate Unit.   This report is expected to be published late November/early December.

Representatives of the Trust will attend the meeting to discuss the reports.

Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust (LPT) submitted an update report on the progress made with outcomes in the Quality Improvement Programme (QIP) since the last meeting.

Dr Peter Miller, Chief Executive, LPT, Professor David Chiddick, Chair of the LPT Board, Mr Adrian Childs, Chief Nurse/Director of Quality, LPT, and Mr Paul Miller, Chief Operating Officer, LPT, attended the meeting to outline the progress made and to answer Members’ questions.

It was noted that the Second Report of the Care Quality Commission (CQC) on their return inspection of the Bradgate Unit was not yet available.  The Trust had received the draft report and had sent comments to the CQC.  The final report was expected to be received later that week.  However, initial feedback from the CQC indicated that significant improvements had been observed, but this could not be formally confirmed until the final report was received.  The CQC would continue to make regular inspections until they were satisfied that the period between inspections could be lengthened to that of the normal inspection regime.  The Trust would have a period of time in which to produce the Action Plan to the CQC report and then the CQC would carry out a further inspection based upon the Action Plan.

The Trust were using a ‘dashboard’ method to monitor progress and be alerted to any potential operational issues.  A number of indicators were being used to see how the Unit was performing.  Some were existing performance indicators as well as key indicators such as staff vacancies, staff sickness and levels of complaints etc were triangulated with other operational indicators to form a wider operational tool to identify any emerging trends or concerns.

Following questions from Members the LPT representatives stated that:-

a)    The CQC report should show the progress made on issues raised at previous Commission meetings;

b)    Indicators 35 and 36 would be measured by the documentation indicating that patients’ needs had been considered.  Previously, patients had been asked about their care plan but it had not always been documented.

c)    The quality of interaction between staff and patients would be measured in a number of ways.  For example, all named nurses were clinically supervised, the quality of the documentation would be reviewed, patients would be asked about the interaction with staff and whether they had confidence with their carers.  Patients could keep their own records of interaction with staff but this would be dependent upon the patient’s level of illness.

d)    The QIP was not a capacity plan designed to cope with pressures under the Winter Care Plan, but if performance was improved then the quality of care would be improved.  There were already capacity issues with bed occupancy rates.  If this was at 100% occupancy then it made the quality of the service harder to provide.  The Trust had the ability to refer patients out of county and there were currently a number of these arrangements.

e)    In relation to providing continuity of service arising from organisational disruptions, it was noted that addressing the CQC’s concerns about documentation being up to date would allow the service to the patient to continue in the event of high levels of staff absences.  If the risk assessments and the individual’s needs were included in the care plan then another member of staff could carry on with the patient’s care.

Members thanked the representatives of LPT for their report and comments and stated that they would wish to see evidence in the future of the impact that the proposed changes had made to improvements in service.

RESOLVED:

1)    that the progress being made by the LPT through the QIP be noted;

2)    that the additional information circulated to Members by the Chief Operating Officer LPT be noted;

3)    that a further update report be submitted the Commission’s next meeting together with a report on the CQC’s report of their second inspection visit to the Bradgate Unit.