CAMHS PICU retains Good rating
South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust welcomes today’s report from the Care Quality Commission (CQC), following an inspection of the child and adolescent mental health services’ (CAMHS) psychiatric intensive care unit (PICU) ward at the Bethlem Royal Hospital following a serious incident which occurred on the ward in June 2023.
Chief Nurse, Vanessa Smith, said: “We are proud to announce that the service remains rated as Good and are very pleased that the CQC recognised that the staff in our teams are working tirelessly to ensure the young people using our services receive high quality, compassionate and effective care.
“At a time when there is a lot of focus on the use of restrictive practices in mental health care, the Trust is proud of the work that it is doing to reduce restrictions and improve patient experiences. We are delighted that the CQC recognised that the staff in our teams are working to reduce the levels of restrictive interventions used on young people with effective leadership on this both at ward level and a senior manager level.
“Our CAMHS teams have worked extremely hard to raise and maintain standards and I’m proud of what they have achieved. We recognise that there is still work to do but will work closely as a senior leadership team with the service and the CQC to implement an action plan for improvements.”
In the report, published today on CQC’s website, the CQC reported that, while there were still some areas for improvement, such as issues around medicines management and learning from incidents, there were several areas of good practice such as:
- They were pleased to receive positive feedback from young people and their families about the quality of care they receive, and that young people said staff treated them well and behaved kindly. This was evident when inspectors saw that staff spoke compassionately about young people and their loved ones.
- Inspectors also identified that staff morale has improved during a challenging time for the NHS and that staff also said they felt respected, and they could raise any concerns without fear.
- The ward had enough nursing and medical staff to keep the current number of young people admitted safe. Recruitment of nursing staff was ongoing, and staff had received basic training to keep people safe from avoidable harm.
- The Trust provided Seni Lewis training to all permanent, bank and agency staff. This training, in conjunction with the positive behavioural support (PBS) model, provides staff with the knowledge and skills in the prevention, understanding and least restrictive management of behaviours that challenge.
- Staff were able to demonstrate that they recognised the individual needs of young people and supported them to understand and manage their care and treatment.
