Maidenhead: Huntercombe Hospital CQC report says 'requires improvement'

Huntercombe Hospital, Huntercombe Lane South, Maidenhead, is a specialist child and adolescent mental health inpatient service, including psychiatric intensive care units for young people.

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Huntercombe Young People Ltd took over the site in March 2021, after the previous provider the hospital was rated inadequate and was put under special measures.

In July this year, the Care and Quality Commission carried out an inspection of the hospital, concluding that there had been 'a number of improvements' since the last visit, but was overall graded 'requires improvement'.

Karen Bennett-Wilson, CQC’s head of hospital inspection for mental health, said: “It is encouraging to report that Huntercombe Young People Ltd, the new provider at Huntercombe Hospital Maidenhead, has made a number of improvements since taking over in March.

"Despite only being in post a short amount of time, we saw the positive impact being made by some structured, sustainable changes that have been put in place which have improved staff morale and made services safer, more effective and caring for the young people using them."

Although the inspectors comments begin with congratulations, the report is quick to point out the concerns with the site.

Ms Bennett-Wilson added: "Staff need more training to enable them to do their job effectively, particularly in caring for young people with eating disorders.

"More therapeutic interventions and activities also need to be made available, and the provider needs to ensure that the delivery of care and treatment is robustly monitored, so improvements can be made in a timely manner.

"Some young people with eating disorders told us they didn’t get enough support at mealtimes and that staff often made unhelpful or inappropriate comments about food.

"For example, a suggestions board placed in Kennet ward, offered enjoying food and baking as suggested activities, which resulted in some young people becoming distressed. They also had to wait a long time for one-to-one therapy which may have delayed their recovery.

“Other people who needed to be fed via a tube that was passed down their throat into their stomach said that staff didn’t speak to them to help keep them calm while they were being fed.

"This process can be very distressing, and some young people saw it as a punishment. Staff told us they were under a lot of pressure when trying to support people being fed in this way and they needed more support.

“We will continue to monitor the service closely to ensure that the improvements are made and fully embedded.”

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A spokesperson for The Huntercombe Group said: “We recognised that significant change was needed at our Maidenhead Hospital and recently brought in a new leadership team to roll out an urgent action plan.

"They’ve been working hard and good progress has been made to improve the standard of care at the hospital, which has been recognised by our regulators.

“We will take the outstanding issues raised in the report on board and tackle them as part of our ongoing action plan, which has already resulted in new processes to implement feedback from relatives and patients.

"Our action plan is also focussed on enhanced training programmes for our staff and updating the physical space – our hospital is in an old building that we are continuously modernising and improving.”

Visit www.cqc.org.uk/ for more information.