The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has today (9 February) published its report following the inspection of Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust in October and November, 2017.

The Trust was rated good for caring and responsive, and requires improvement for effective, safe and well-led, leading to an overall rating of requires improvement.

Inspectors said that staff showed ‘a caring attitude’ to people who used its services and that ‘staff in all services were kind, compassionate, respectful and supportive’, and feedback from people who used the Trust’s services was ‘highly positive’.  It also said that ‘services were responsive to meet the needs of people’ and that ‘people could access services when they needed them’.

The CQC inspected nine core services and the report reflects both these and the findings from previous inspections.   Across the Trust’s 14 community and mental health services, the CQC gave an overall rating of good for eight, for all of its community health and specialist dental services and four of its mental health services, and requires improvement for six mental health services.  The report gave an outstanding rating for caring in its community health services for adults, and responsive for its community-based end of life care.

The report identified the following key areas for improvement: ensuring additional senior-level oversight on required staff training and supervision of staff, and in some areas, the need for greater consistency in completing care records, and in safeguarding and risk management.

Many of the areas have already been addressed, or plans are in place to deliver the required improvements.

Nicola Lees, Chief Executive of Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust, said:  “The report rightly recognises outstanding practice and innovation in all areas, including safety huddles on our wards, a new anxiety care pathway in our specialist dental services, innovative care pathways in community services, and a strong focus on caring for the physical and mental health needs of people across all areas.  It also recognises that our staff are ‘caring and responsive’, and ensure that individuals are’ involved in decisions about their care’.

“The CQC also identified areas where we need to do more and many of these have already been addressed, and in some instances were actioned immediately.  Additional scrutiny on required training by the Trust’s Quality and Safety and Mental Health Legislation Committees will strengthen oversight in this area, and a central database will provide greater awareness on all levels of supervision across the Trust.  We have already made a significant investment to introduce a new clinical records system for our mental health services that will be running from May and this will also ensure greater consistency across patient records.

“Knowing our strong track record on service innovation, performance and quality, the rating was disappointing, but work is already in place to address the key areas that the report raised.”