NHS bosses 'working to put things right' after Doncaster mental health service told it must improve

Rotherham Doncaster and South Humberside NHS Foundation Trust (RDaSH) scored a rating of ‘requires improvement’ from the Care Quality Commission (CQC). The trust was previously rated ‘good’.

The trust’s safety, management and effectiveness were told they needed to improve but scored ‘good’ ratings for their care and responsiveness.

NHS bosses said they were ‘disappointed’ in the rating but were already working hard to put things right.

The NHS body provides mental health and learning disability services across Rotherham, Doncaster, North Lincolnshire, and substance misuse services in Doncaster.

Inspectors said the trust must improve systems and processes to ensure the trust has sufficient staff, that caseloads are within the recommended number in community mental health services and that staff receive the required mandatory training and clinical supervision.

CQC’s deputy chief inspector of hospitals, Kevin Cleary, said there were a number of ‘outstanding and good practices’ but there were also a number of areas that ‘required improvement’.

He said: “In January 2018 the trust was rated as good overall but, during our most recent inspection, we found a deterioration in the service being delivered in a number areas.

“Improvements were needed across the services we inspected and the trust needed to ensure systems were in place to keep people safe, that it could mitigate risks to people’s safety and ensure there were sufficient staff available to deliver care.”

Kathryn Singh, chief executive officer at RDaSH, said the trust has already started work on improving areas they need to.

“Whilst we are of course very disappointed with the CQC’s overall rating for our Trust we welcome the report and will use this to help us make improvements,” she said.

“When inspectors return they will see that we are working hard to improve those areas they judged as ‘requires improvement’. I want to thank our fantastic staff for all their hard work and for the great care they provide and assure our patients and their families that the vast majority of our services are rated as good with some outstanding.”