12 January 2017

For immediate release

CQC revisits CNWL and revises mental health rating upwards

The CQC has uprated CNWL's 20 mental health wards for working age adults (361 beds at six hospital sites in North West London and Milton Keynes) to ‘good'.

You can read the full report here: http://www.cqc.org.uk/sites/default/files/new_reports/AAAF8013.pdf

The Trust was initially inspected in February 2015; there have been 8 subsequent visits and then this latest inspection in October 2016, which was a "short-notice announced inspection. [CQC] also carried out an unannounced evening visit to Shannon and Danube Wards at St Charles."

The 46-page report lists 12 points of improvements but also raises four points where more work is needed; two on record keeping, one each about reducing restraint and consistent physical health monitoring systems - though good practice is also singled out for The Shine Project, which improves physical health and is now being extended across the Trust.

CQC spoke to 123 staff, 89 patients, six managers, a carer and five advocates. They looked at 220 patient records and carried out medication checks on four wards. The rating is based on this inspection, what people told them, their own monitoring and information from us and other organisations.

Claire Murdoch, Chief Executive: said, "This is really good news for patients and hard working staff. So much thorough scrutiny is a good thing but makes staff understandably anxious.

"The CQC got to see everything and we showed them our problems and our solutions, our pressures and our practice and they concluded we are ‘good'.

"The best organisations are open about negatives as well as positives; showing good practice as well as solutions to problems. Demand for these services is very high and treatments are good. We accept there is more to do but this report shows we're doing it!"

Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust
Stephenson House, 75 Hampstead Road, London NW1 2PL
Tel: 020 3214 5756 e-mail:communications.cnwl@nhs.net