North East London trust rated ‘good’ overall by CQC

North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NELFT) has been rated ‘good’ overall by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) following inspections in October and November 2017.

The trust was rated ‘good’ for being effective, caring, responsive and well-led, and ‘requires improvement’ for being safe.

Following CQC’s previous inspection in 2016, the trust had implemented a comprehensive improvement plan and most of CQC’s recommendations had been put into practice.

During the most recent inspection, only one core services remained as ‘requires improvement’: wards for adults of working age and psychiatric intensive care unit. The rest are rated as ‘good’ apart from child adolescent mental health wards which is now rated ‘outstanding’.

The most significant improvement was for child and adolescent mental health inpatient wards where, in an 18 month period, the ratings for the service had improved from ‘inadequate’ to ‘outstanding’.

In addition the trust had stable leadership through the board and the executive leadership team who had an appropriate range of skills, knowledge and experience.

The trust was making good use of IT and promoting mobile working. The systems also promoted access at different levels of the organisation to timely information on performance.

Paul Lelliott, CQC’s deputy chief inspector and mental health lead, said: “There was evidence of some fine improvements to the standard of care at North East London NHS Foundation Trust. We found one area of Outstanding service in the trust’s child and adolescent mental health inpatient wards.

“While there are some areas where improvements still need to be made generally I am pleased with the progress made here and want to see it to continue in the future.”