Watchdog prevents any new patients on second ward at Northampton mental health hospital in yet another scolding inspection

A second ward at a Northampton's mental health hospital has been prevented from admitting any new patients after another damning inspection.

In February, the healthcare watchdog personally stepped in at St Andrew's Hospital to restrict any more patients being admitted to its "unsafe" children's and young people's service.

Now, one of St Andrew's women's wards - Seacole - has also been placed under urgent measures after inspectors found more serious errors in a visit in January.

Namely, severe staff shortages affected care at almost every level. The report plainly states that "the service did not have enough nursing and support staff to keep patients safe."

This led to incidents of self-harm taking place because of lapses in observations. In some cases, patients were not taken to hospital for emergency medical help "due to a lack of suitable staff to support".

And, in a serious incident, a "mini riot" reportedly took place on the Seacole ward on New Year's Eve 2019 because of staff shortages and led to two patients hurting themselves.

St Andrew's say prior to the inspection they had already taken the decision to close Seacole and plan to "remodel women's services completely".

The report reads: "Staff spoken with were burnt out and distressed. Staff told us that they dreaded coming into work and felt professionally vulnerable.

"Staff told us they had been raising concerns about the staffing situation on the ward since the summer, but no one had taken action. Senior managers told us that there were no systems in place to identify when managers were burnt out."

Additionally, patients were also being subjected to mechanical restraints without the approval of St Andrew's board of directors.

Now, Seacole is the second ward at St Andrew's the CQC has ordered not to accept any new patients without their consent.

It comes after a similarly damning report was published over the hospital's young people's service at 110-bed Fitzroy House, which CEO Katie Fisher has previously called a "mistake" because the trust built it too large.

In contrast, Seacole has room for 15 patients.

The hospital's children's service is reportedly being decreased and transferred to a different ward.

However, the inspection in January reportedly took place one week after a new ward manager arrived. In a second visit in February, staff reportedly "spoke highly" of the new manager and changes he had made.

CQC deputy chief inspector for mental health and community services, Dr Kevin Cleary, said: "Senior leaders [have] assured us they were addressing issues we raised. This included changing leadership, booking more agency staff and improving communication between colleagues.

“Due to our concerns, we took action to protect people using the service – including preventing new admissions to Seacole ward and requiring them to meet necessary staffing levels. These measures apply until we are satisfied necessary improvements have been made."

A St Andrew’s Healthcare spokesperson said: “There are areas across our organisation where we are delivering good patient care, but we know there are pockets which are unacceptable and need to improve, and we are working hard to address these.

"That’s why we announced at the start of the year that we are significantly reducing the number of beds in some of our services, including our Women’s unit, as we focus more on community care.

“Prior to the CQC inspection, we had already taken the decision to close Seacole ward and install a new leadership team in our Women’s service who have already begun implementing a number of changes. In the coming months we will be remodelling our Women’s services completely. We are working closely with patients, carers, staff members and commissioners in order to minimise the disruption to patients during these changes.”

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