Agenda item

To receive a report from the Leicestershire Partnership Trust on the progress made to date in addressing the actions required after the inspection in March 2015 and the feedback received from the CQC following the re-inspection in November 2016.

The Commission received a report from the Leicestershire Partnership Trust on the progress made to date in addressing the actions required after the inspection in March 2015 and the feedback received from the CQC following the re-inspection in November 2016.

Dr Peter Miller introduced the report and commented that the original report published in July 2015 had given the Trust an overall rating of ‘Requires Improvement’ and was critical of 3 services.  The current report showed the progress that had been made since the Action Plan had been agreed with the CQC.  Currently approximately 80% of actions required had been completed with evidence and approximately a further 15% had been completed but were waiting for documented evidence.  Three Actions were currently Amber, these were:-

a)         Clinical Risk and Assessment and Care Planning

b)         Ensuring that assessment of capacity is both undertaken and recorded within patient notes.

c)         The development of a Trust-wide Mental Capacity Act assurance framework.

The CQC had re-inspected in November 2016. 86 inspectors had looked at all services again and, although the Trust had received a brief verbal feedback, they were waiting for draft report which would be issued later in the week. The final report was expected to be published in February 2017 and would be followed by ‘summit’ meeting to determine any further action plans.

In response to Members’ questions the Chief Executive Leicestershire Partnership Trust stated that:-

a)         It would be disappointing if the report did not recognise that improvements had been made in many areas; although the CQC might be concerned that the mental health pathway still required improvement and that there were too many people being placed out of county, which the Trust did not wish to see either.  The Trust was not an outlier in this respect as many other Trusts were also in this position.

b)         It was hoped that the STP would make the Trust more sustainable, although the process was not about increasing capacity but about supporting more people in their own homes.  Currently, 60% of patients were admitted against their will under the Mental Health Act. The Trust was in the middle 50^th percentile of beds per population.  However, people were in hospital longer with more delayed transfers of care within the system.  The delayed transfers could be attributed to a number of reasons, such as waiting for physical adaptions to patients’ homes or that no available and suitable support services were in place for them. 

c)         The re-inspection had looked at 15 separate service lines and each one would receive a rating.   The final report would be submitted to the Commission when it was published.

d)         The 3 Amber ratings were because the Trust was required to demonstrate that the ‘actions’ had been achieved on a consistent basis and, whilst significant progress had been made, it was expected that the CQC would still expect further work to be done.

e)         The Trust had increased expenditure on services and had the evidence to support this, but there was still further work required in some areas.   Parts of estate were too old and required improvement and, although the Trust had a capital programme to improve the physical environment, it was insufficient to meet the improvement required.

Members commented that it would be useful to be able to compare the original report with the final re-inspection report in order to focus on what has been done since the original report to make improvements and to identify what progress had or had not been made.

The Chair stated that in future it would be helpful to have a covering report in addition to CQC report to provide more detail about what improvements had taken place.  The covering report should be in the format of a scrutiny report and that council officers could give advice on style and format.  It would also be helpful to have a precis that clearly set out the issues to be addressed.

The Deputy City Mayor commented that the Health and Wellbeing Board and the Mental Health Boards had looked at the issues with service users’ involvement and had worked with service providers to shape improvements.  He would expect the Board to continue to be engaged in the process going forward.

The Chair thanked the Chief Executive of the Leicestershire Partnership Trust for attending and presenting the report.

AGREED:-

That the report be received and that the Commission receive the final report on the re-inspection when it is published with the covering report requested.