Southern Health making progress but still 'requires improvement'

Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust has shown signs of progress but still 'requires improvement', according to a new report by the Care Quality Commission.

Inspections took place in June and July this year, the first comprehensive report into the trust since 2014.

The trust has been rated 'good' for being caring and responsive.

However the CQC has kept its rating of the trust as 'requires improvement'.

In March 2018, the trust was fined £2 million for failing to prevent the deaths of two patients in its care.

In 2013, 18-year-old Connor Sparrowhawk was left unsupervised and drowned in a bath after suffering an epileptic seizure at Slade House in Oxfordshire.

In April 2012, Teresa Colvin was found unconscious in a communal phone booth while being treated at the Woodhaven unit in Hampshire, the 45-year-old died four days later.

  • Watch Rachel Hepworth's report below

Interviewees:

Becky Noyce, Clinical Sister

Dr Nick Broughton, CEO, Southern Health

Maureen Rickman, Jo Deering's sister

Sara Ryan, Connor Sparrowhawk's mother

The CQC inspected 10 mental health core services:

  • Acute wards for adults of working age and psychiatric intensive care units (PICU's)

  • Long stay/rehabilitation mental health wards for working age adults

  • Forensic inpatient / secure wards

  • Child and adolescent mental health wards

  • Wards for older people with mental health problems

  • Wards for people with a learning disability or autism

  • Community-based mental health services for adults of working age

  • Mental health crisis services and health based places of safety

  • Community-based mental health services for older people

  • Community mental health services for people with a learning disability or autism

It also inspected all five of the community health services:

  • Community health services for adults

  • Community health services for children, young people and families

  • Community health inpatient services

  • End of life care

  • Urgent care