Archived: The Priory Hospital Heathfield

Updated 26 February 2021

The Priory Hospital Heathfield is a specialist neurorehabilitation service that provides post-acute neurobehavioural rehabilitation for people with an acquired brain injury as well as offering long term care and support to people with complex needs relating to progressive neurological conditions.

The Priory Hospital Heathfield is registered to provide the following regulated activities:

• Assessment or medical treatment for persons detained under the Mental Health Act 1983.

• Treatment of disease, disorder or injury.

A new hospital director had commenced employment in October 2020 and had applied to be the registered manager with the Care Quality Commission. The service had also recently recruited a long-term locum ward manager. During the inspection there were six patients on Holman ward and eight on Boyce ward.

We carried out an unannounced comprehensive inspection at the Priory Hospital Heathfield on 2 December 2020. This was following focused inspections carried out on 12 June, 14 July and 2 September 2020. Following the inspection in June 2020, we wrote to the provider regarding our intent to use our powers under Section 31 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 about our serious concerns regarding the safety and patient care at the Priory Hospital Heathfield. The provider responded to our letter with an action plan that told us what actions they were taking to address the concerns raised.

We returned to the hospital in July 2020 to review progress against the actions the provider told us they were taking to address the concerns in the Section 31 letter of intent. On 15 July 2020, following our second visit, we served the provider an urgent notice of decision to impose conditions on their registration under Section 31 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008. We took this urgent action as we believed that a person would or may have been exposed to the risk of harm if we did not do so.

On 4 September 2020, following our third visit, we served the provider a new urgent notice of decision to impose conditions on their registration under Section 31 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008. We were concerned that the provider had not appropriately reviewed and monitored the patients’ records, in accordance with the conditions we imposed on their registration on 15 July 2020.

During this inspection visit on 2 December 2020, we found that the provider had met the conditions imposed on their registration on 4 September 2020, but needed to strengthen the work they had done in relation to supporting patients with their communication needs.

Updated 26 February 2021

On 2 December 2020 the Care Quality Commission undertook an unannounced comprehensive inspection of The Priory Hospital Heathfield to look at the improvements made to the service following our previous inspection visits on 12 June, 14 July and 2 September 2020.

Previously, the Priory Hospital Heathfield was inspected in June 2018. At that time the hospital was registered as a care home, therefore it was inspected using our adult social care methodology. During the inspection in 2018, Priory Hospital Heathfield was rated good overall and good in all five domains.

Provider has now redesigned the service and is now operating it as a hospital. These ratings were suspended following the inspection we undertook on 14 July 2020, because the service was inspected under a different inspection methodology and were not a true reflection of the quality of care.

Our rating of the Priory Hospital Heathfield went down. We rated this service as requires improvement because:

• Staff did not always meet the communication needs of all patients. Staff were not using communication aids to support patients with communication difficulties.

• The hospital did not provide a range of treatments suitable to the needs of the patients cared for in mental health rehabilitation wards and in line with national guidance about best practice. We found limited evidence of individualised therapeutic input and rehabilitation focused care.

• Staff did not always ensure that care plans were personalised and that patients’ monitoring charts were completed thoroughly.

However:

• The service provided safe care. The hospital was clean and tidy and the wards were calm. There were enough nursing staff on both wards and they were spending time with the patients.

• There was a new leadership team in place at the hospital who had the experience, knowledge and skills to manage the service.

• Staff managed medicines safely and followed good practice with respect to safeguarding.

• Staff treated patients with compassion and kindness and respected their privacy and dignity. All staff interactions that we observed with patients were caring and respectful, and patients spoke mostly positively about staff.

• Staff access to paper-based and electronic clinical information had improved since our last inspection visit and these records had been kept up to date. Patients’ physical health and basic care monitoring forms and charts had been individualised and streamlined.

Updated 26 February 2021