Healthcare watchdog personally steps in to end 'risk of continuing harm' to young people at Northampton's St Andrew's Hospital

Young patients being "dragged" on the floor, "a risk continuing harm" and incidents of bullying being passed off as "a bit of fun".

This is what the healthcare watchdog found in its latest inspection of how children and young people are being cared for at Northampton's St Andrew's Hospital Fitzroy House - leading them to put the site on its very last warning.

In its latest report published today (February 25), the deputy chief inspector of the CQC Kevin Cleary says if the hospital does not make urgent improvements it will take action to shut the service down.

And as part of new enforcement measures, St Andrew's must get the watchdog's consent to take on any new patients to its children's and adolescents mental health service [CAHMS].

It comes after St Andrew's announced in January - which would have been four weeks after the inspectors' visit - that they would be acting to patients out of Fitzroy House and cut the number of children they care for from 99 down to 30.CEO of St Andrew's Fisher has also said in a statement today that their current model of care for young people is "wrong" and is taking action to change.

In a statement, the CQC's Kevin Cleary said: “This is the fourth time that we have inspected St Andrew’s Healthcare Adolescents Service in the past three years and we are hugely disappointed that over that time, the service has failed to address some of the concerns we have raised. In some important respects, the safety of care has deteriorated.

“This is why we have taken urgent enforcement action.

"The leadership, governance and culture did not always support the delivery of safe, high-quality, person centred-care."

The scathing report lists incidents of staff using improper restraint techniques, leading to patients being "dragged" along the floor or being physically injured by staff during restraints.

Inspectors were also concerned patients were not always treated with "kindness, dignity and respect" - including a case where an incident of bullying between patients was labelled as "a bit of fun" in handover notes.

Meanwhile, repeated staff shortages were noted as risking the safety of patients. During a period of three months in 2019, 50 per cent of shifts were being covered by bank staff and another 35 per cent were covered by agency staff.

St Andrews says the "majority" of the issues raised by the inspectors were related to agency staff who have been "prevented" from working for them again.

Mr Cleary said: "We have told St Andrew’s Healthcare that it must take immediate action to address the problems we identified, and we are pleased that they have already made plans to reduce the number of patents at Fitzroy House.

"We will continue to monitor the service closely and if urgent improvements are not made to ensure people are safe, we will take further action to prevent the provider from operating this service."

St Andrews says it has put a new leadership team in place at the CAHMS service and has "taken action against a small number of staff members" for their treatment of patients.

CEO of St Andrew's Healthcare Katie Fisher said: "The current of model of care we are providing to some of the most vulnerable young people in our country is wrong.

“Whilst the CQC recognise in their report that we have made some improvements, their latest inspection findings have not achieved the progress we initially hoped for, particularly relating to the behaviour of a small number of staff.

“When I came to the organisation 18 months ago, I made a promise: there is no place at St Andrew’s for staff who do not live by our core values of compassion, accountability, respect and excellence.

“We have already taken action against a handful of staff members in CAMHS whose treatment of our patients is completely unacceptable. There is no excuse for this behaviour, and for this we are sorry. We know we need to make significant changes, and quickly.

“I’m personally committed to resolving this situation with urgency and purpose. We need to be able to provide much more bespoke high quality care for children and adolescents who find themselves in a mental health crisis.”