Children’s mental health service at Northampton’s St Andrew’s Hospital rated ‘good’ despite regulation breaches
The children’s mental health service at a Northampton hospital has been rated ‘good’ by the care watchdog, despite regulation breaches.
The child and adolescent mental health service (CAMHS) at St Andrew’s Hospital was assessed by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) between November 27, 2024 and January 17, 2025.
In a report published at the end of February 2025, the service was rated ‘good’ overall, including ‘good’ ratings in the safe, caring, responsive and well-led categories. The service was rated ‘requires improvement’ in the effective category.
St Andrew’s says it is “pleased” that the CQC has recognised its “good quality of care”.
According to the care watchdog, the assessment was prompted by a report of an incident and “feedback received from external agencies, including concerns about the management of risk”.
During the assessment, inspectors spoke to six young people, most of whom said they felt “safe” on the ward, but that there was “not enough staff to meet their immediate needs all the time”.
The CQC report said: “Most of the young people told us they felt safe on the ward.
“Five out of six young people we spoke with told us there was not enough staff to meet their immediate needs all the time. Examples given by patients included that they were not always being able to use their leave at a time they wanted, having to wait for drinks or other requested items, waiting for supervision to use the toilet, and waiting to make supervised phone calls.
“Two young people we spoke with had observed that staff had not always checked on young people when they should have when on enhanced support, due to being busy with other tasks.”
The report from the CQC also goes on to identify regulation breaches, relating to staffing.
The CQC report said: “The assessment examined five quality statements across two key questions; safe and well-led. We found breaches of the regulations in relation to staffing. An action plan has been requested from the provider to address this.”
Chronicle & Echo approached St Andrew’s for a comment about the overall rating, as well as a response to the identified regulation breaches around staffing and the action plan requested by the CQC.
A St Andrew’s Healthcare spokesperson said: “We are pleased the CQC rated our overall CAMHS as ‘good’ following an inspection in November 2024.
“As a charity we recognise we are on a journey of continuous improvement and we remain committed to working with stakeholders to delivery high quality experience and outcomes for people with complex mental health need.
“We are pleased the CQC recognised the good quality of care we are delivering to our young patients within CAMHS.”