Mental health trust '˜requires improvement'

Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust said they used their first major inspection as a ‘learning opportunity to make improvements to services.’

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspections are based on what matters most to people who use services.

They answer the questions – are services safe, effective, caring, responsive to people’s needs and well-led? The inspections rate services as outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate.

A spokesman for Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust said: “The Trust was inspected in April 2015 and used our first major inspection under the new format as a learning opportunity to make any necessary improvements to our services.. We were realistic about the fact that there were challenges in some parts of the organisation and issues that needed to be resolved and thought that it was important to be open with the CQC about that from the onset.

“Out of the 16 inspection reports that were compiled about the Trust’s services, half received a rating of good across all domains which was really encouraging and gave us a solid foundation to build upon. Our overall rating of requires improvement was helpful in that it provided a clear focus for us to make the necessary improvements and we were able to address some immediate issues and take
 remedial action to ensure that the services provided are safe and of a high quality.”

“A robust quality improvement plan has been delivered and this will be reviewed by the CQC when they revisit in September along with other previously uninspected services.”

CQC remains on track to inspect every primary medical and adult social care service in England by March31 2017.