INSPECTORS examining York’s mental health trust have rated services as ‘good’ overall but said patient care still requires further improvement.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has released an inspection report into the Tees, Esk and Wear Valley NHS Foundation (TEWV) Trust, which runs mental health services in the York and Selby area as well as other areas of North Yorkshire and the North East.

When TEWV took over the running of services in the York area from another trust in 2015, some of the wards had previously been rated inadequate but since then ‘significant improvement’ to patient care has been made.

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However, Dr Paul Lelliott, the CQC’s deputy chief inspector of hospitals, said: “We believe there is room to improve further. There has not been quite as much progress as we would have liked.

“I am pleased to note that the long stay rehabilitation wards and community mental health services for people with learning disabilities have been rated as Good, although some improvements on safety in the long stay wards are needed. Our inspectors will return to check on the progress of these improvements at a later date.”

The CQC’s main findings were that staff engaged with patients in a caring, compassionate and respectful manner on wards. Patients were positive about the care and treatment they received and they felt involved in care planning.

They found the trust worked actively to promote the wellbeing of staff and staff carried out comprehensive assessments of patients’ needs and reviewed their risks regularly.

However, the trust must follow guidance on mixed sex accommodation and must “improve the environment to ensure patient dignity and privacy at Cherry Tree house”, a unit for older people in Tang Hall.

It must also ensure there are up-to-date suicide prevention environmental surveys and staff must be aware of ligature risks and blind spots on the wards and be able to identify how they mitigate these.

TEWV was rated as good for how effective, caring, responsive and well-led it is but told the safety of its services require improvement.

Among the other wards inspected, in Selby the provider must ensure there are no delays to the administration of medicine at Worsley Court and in York the trust should ensure there are effective systems to allow staff to call for help in emergencies.

Mental health services in York and Selby were previously run by Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust which received a highly critical report in 2015. Inspectors found ‘a tale of two cities’, with higher standards in Leeds, but concerns raised about York.

The Care Quality Commission inspected long stay rehabilitation mental health wards and community mental health services for people with learning disabilities or autism. The CQC has rated both of these services as Good overall.

Inspectors found the community mental health services to be Outstanding for caring domain, but that the safety of the long stay rehabilitation wards required improvement.

The trust remains rated as Good overall, but their rating for well-led has been amended from Outstanding to Good.

The inspection reports including individual services can be found at: http://www.cqc.org.uk/provider/RX3.