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Watchdog highlights best and worst of NHS: Largest review of acute inpatient mental health care
The Healthcare Commission has said that the quality of the services varied widely across the country as it published the most comprehensive assessment of NHS acute inpatient mental health services ever undertaken. The Commission assessed all 69 NHS Trusts providing acute inpatient mental health services in England. This covered 554 wards providing almost 10,000 beds for patients between the ages of 18 and 65. Overall, eight trusts were rated as ‘excellent’, 20 as ‘good’, 30 as ‘fair’ and 11 as ‘weak’. The Commission conducted the review following a number of reports over the last decade highlighting concerns about the quality of inpatient mental health services. It was also concerned that the recent focus on community mental health services meant that inpatient services do not always get the funding and attention they need. The review showed that while some Trusts struggle to meet standards, there are a number of high–performing Trusts proving that it is possible to provide personalised, safe and good quality acute mental health care. However, no Trust was scored as ‘excellent’ across all four of the key criteria, showing that every NHS mental health provider Trust has room to improve services to patients. The review showed that there were variations between Trusts and there were also differences between wards in the same Trust.
"It is clear that it is possible to provide patients with excellent acute hospital care and that some organisations are doing exactly that. It is also clear that these can be tough places to work and I pay tribute to the dedicated staff who face the challenges on a daily basis. "But our report also shows that there are issues of significant concern and this is particularly true for some organisations. "There are cases where people are not always getting the personalised, safe, high quality care that they need. This is happening at a time of crisis in their lives and it cannot be ignored. "I think that society is sometimes reluctant to talk about mental health care concerns, but I’m afraid the problems are not going to just go away. We need to have the same high expectations for these services as we do for other parts of the NHS.” Organisations, service users and carers can access the results of the review and a range of other information relating to mental health Trusts, on the Commission’s new mental health section of its site. The new section contains service users’ views about community mental health services across the country. Search for local Trusts by name or postcode at website: www.healthcarecommission.org.uk. From your browser | Email the page | Email the page link | Print the page | Add page to favourites ········································································································································
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