Patients were given a patient handbook upon admission which provided information about their rights, the service they would receive and how to make a complaint. We looked at how the wards looked after young people (under 18 years of age) because we had received notifications where young people had been admitted to adult wards because of a lack nationally of Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMHs) beds. We found the provider had good systems in place to manage this. We checked the care records for five patients. These showed us that risk assessments and care plans had been completed. These had been reviewed regularly and had involved the patient. There were enough qualified, skilled and experienced staff to meet people’s needs. Senior staff discussed with us a review of the skill mix of staff working at the hospital which had recently been completed. They had identified that changes needed to be made to the way in which wards were staffed. Changes had been made to the staffing levels and ward off duty rosters reflected these. The provider had robust quality monitoring systems in place and we saw evidence that they learnt from incidents / complaints.

The comments from patients we spoke to included "I really make use of the great facilities here such as the gym. The occupational therapists have really helped me to get well". "I have been coming here for 10 years and it has improved so much, the staff are more helpful, the food is brilliant and there are more therapies".