Outpatient Services

Updated 28 February 2022

St Andrew’s Healthcare Community Partnerships location registered with the Care Quality Commission on 31 January 2013. The service had a registered manager at the time of our inspection. The Community Partnerships location had an office base with treatment rooms on St Andrew’s Healthcare Northampton site.

St Andrew’s Healthcare Community Partnerships location provides the following services:

- Veterans Mental Health Complex Treatment Service which is commissioned by NHS England Armed Forces, to provide support and treatment to military veterans across the East Midlands and East of England. The service supported 273 service users at the time of our inspection.

- Assertive Transition Service (new model pilot) which is commissioned by a provider collaborative and covers the southern area of the East Midlands. The service works with service users for up to a year supporting them in their transition from secure in-patient settings to a sustainable community placement. The service supported 37 service users at the time of our inspection.

- Criminal Justice Service commissioned to provide screening/assessment in court, followed by an average of 12 face to face individualised psychological interventions. The purpose is to support the service user and in doing so have a positive impact on reducing reoffending. The service supported 167 service users at the time of our inspection. This service is currently provided across South London and Essex.

- Outpatient and Community Services primarily offering private therapies and more recently supporting NHS trusts with autistic spectrum disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder assessments. The service is also piloting bespoke services for schools and universities to support where there are gaps in current mental health provision. The service provides specialist supervision/case consultation for children’s homes. The service supported 119 service users at the time of our inspection.

St Andrew’s Healthcare Community Partnerships has been inspected once under the previous name of St Andrew’s Healthcare Consultancy Service.

St Andrew’s Healthcare Community Partnerships is registered to provide the following regulated activities:

• Treatment of disease, disorder or injury

This service was last inspected in February 2014 under the Care Quality Commission’s previous methodology and was compliant in all areas inspected.

What people who use the service say

We spoke with nine service users during the inspection.

We received positive feedback from everyone we spoke with, with service users telling us the service had changed their life and staff were incredible, faultless, supportive, skilled, lovely and polite. Service users also told us they had been well supported throughout the coronavirus pandemic and offered a choice of face to face or virtual appointments. Service users were complimentary about the therapy provided and told us they were given different options to choose from. One service user told us the therapy was like no other they had received in 30 years. Service users who accessed the Northampton base for treatment were positive about the facilities and advised they were clean, comfortable and private.

The service recently started using ‘Patient Reported Experience Measures’ to monitor feedback and satisfaction with the service. We reviewed the results for November 2021 and 77 service users had submitted responses based on their most recent experience of the service. Eighty-two percent of service users fed back their experience of the service was ‘very good’, 12% ‘good’, 0.7% ‘poor’ and 0.7% ‘very poor’.

Updated 28 February 2022

This was the first rated inspection of this service. We rated it as good because:

• The service provided safe care. Clinical premises where service users were seen were safe and clean. The number of service users on the caseload of the teams, and of individual members of staff, was not too high to prevent staff from giving each service user the time they needed. Staff managed waiting lists well to ensure service users who required urgent care were seen promptly. Staff assessed and managed risk well and followed good practice with respect to safeguarding.
• Staff developed holistic, recovery-oriented care plans informed by a comprehensive assessment and in collaboration with families and carers for most patients. They provided a range of treatments that were informed by best-practice guidance and suitable to the needs of the service users. Staff engaged in clinical audit to evaluate the quality of care they provided.
• The teams included or had access to the full range of specialists required to meet the needs of the service users. Managers ensured these staff received training, supervision and appraisal. Staff worked well together as a multidisciplinary team and with relevant services outside the organisation.
• Staff treated service users with compassion and kindness, respected their privacy and dignity, and understood the individual needs of service users. They actively involved service users and families and carers in care decisions.
• The service was easy to access. Staff assessed and treated service users who required urgent care promptly and those who did not require urgent care did not wait too long to start treatment. The criteria for referral to the service did not exclude service users who would have benefitted from care.
• The service was well led and the governance processes ensured the procedures relating to the work of the service ran smoothly.
• Managers and staff engaged actively with other local health and social care providers to ensure an integrated health and care system was commissioned and provided to meet the needs of the local population. Staff were continually improving and innovating to improve the service.

However:

• Staff had not recorded action taken following a service user presenting as high risk at the Outpatient and Community service.
• Managers had not ensured all staff completed basic life support and immediate life support training.
• Staff at the Assertive Transitions service had not recorded if they offered a copy of care plans to service users.

Updated 28 February 2022

This was the first rated inspection of this service. We rated it as good. See summary above for details.