Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Foundation Trust

On this page

• Overview
• Assessing needs
• Delivering evidence-based care and treatment
• How staff, teams and services work together
• Supporting people to live healthier lives
• Monitoring and improving outcomes
• Consent to care and treatment

Children and young people received care, treatment and support that was evidence-based and in line with good practice standards. Staff were encouraged to learn about new and innovative approaches that evidence shows can improve the way they deliver care. Staff had access to the information they needed to appropriately assess, plan and deliver children and young people’s care, treatment and support. Plans for transition, referral and discharge considered children’s and young people’s individual needs, circumstances, ongoing care arrangements and expected outcomes. When children and young people were due to move between services, all necessary staff, teams, and services were involved in assessing their needs to maintain continuity of care.

This service scored 75 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

We did not look at Assessing needs during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Effective.

There were staff who were Dialectal Behaviour Therapy (DBT) Champions on the wards to assist staff and people and provide coaching where needed. This helped to ensure that people and staff were using the DBT skills learned to improve people’s wellbeing. Staff received training in working with children and young people who have an eating disorder. This included the psychological needs of the person but also their physical healthcare needs. Most of the staff needed to deliver care and treatment were part of the multidisciplinary team and included a psychologist, doctors, registered nurses, occupational therapist and assistant, family therapist and speech and language therapist. The trust was recruiting psychology assistant hours, and a charities bid was in progress for a personal trainer, and two activity coordinators. Staff said they could contact a dietician where needed but it would be better if a dietician was based at Parkview particularly for Irwin ward. Managers had reported this as a risk. Staff told us that youth workers visited the wards one evening a week to support children and young people and provided activities. Children and young people also had access to music and pet therapies.

On Irwin ward there was evidence that staff followed best practice guidance on working with children and young people with an eating disorder. Young people had individual placemats which they had designed to show how they liked to be supported at mealtimes. They also had their own “fiddle toys” at their place to use to reduce their anxiety during mealtimes. Records showed that the psychologist had worked with children and young people to formulate positive behaviour support plans. These were discussed at the child and young person’s multidisciplinary review meeting and staff followed these to support individuals. Managers completed audits based on National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance. Managers had recently completed an audit on incidents of self-harm and fed back their findings to the fortnightly Clinical Governance meeting. They discussed what improvements were needed to improve outcomes for children and young people.

Children and young people said they attended their multidisciplinary team meeting to review their care and treatment and were involved in this. Relatives said they were invited to their relative’s multidisciplinary team meeting and were able to contribute to the discussions. They said they were given a report ahead of this so knew what would be discussed, which they found helpful. Relatives said they could attend the meeting online if not able to be there in person.

Staff said that staffing had improved, which enabled them to work together as a team. Staff said they were supported by their peers but also managers were supportive and responded to alarms. All members of the multidisciplinary team that we spoke with felt their views were listened to and included to support children and young people. Staff said that the child or young person, their relatives where appropriate and their community mental health team were now all involved and encouraged to attend via video call if not able to in person. Staff said this was an improvement in liaising with children and young people’s community teams. Managers told us they worked with the trusts young people's advisory group and their experts by experience. They said the group visited Parkview to do quality reviews which managers used feedback from to improve the service.

Records showed the involvement of the multidisciplinary team in a child or young person’s care. They also showed where appropriate that the team liaised with the general hospital where a child or young person was admitted from prior to their admission. Staff completed pre -admission assessments at general hospitals where appropriate. Records showed that decisions were made with the child or young person, their parents or carers, their school, and the multidisciplinary team about whether the young person would take exams during their admission. Children and young people attended the school in the grounds of Parkview. The school liaised with staff on the wards and with the child or young person’s school they normally attended at home. Records included a summary from parents on ‘how to care for my young person’. This was detailed and personalised and included any other professionals or services that the child or young person was involved with. Staff said that the current electronic patient records system they used did not always make it easy for them to share information with other teams and to have all the information in one place. There were plans to move to one electronic system which the adult mental health teams also used so would be beneficial to work together.

We did not look at Supporting people to live healthier lives during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Effective.

We did not look at Monitoring and improving outcomes during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Effective.

We did not look at Consent to care and treatment during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Effective.