28 June 2023
During a routine inspection
This service is rated as Good overall. (Previous inspection December 2019 – Good).
The key questions are rated as:
Are services safe? – Good
Are services effective? – Outstanding
Are services caring? – Good
Are services responsive? – Good
Are services well-led? – Good
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at The London Psychiatry Centre as part of our inspection programme.
CQC inspected the service on 17 December 2019 and asked the provider to make improvements to their clinical governance meetings, to focus on quality and performance in the service, and to seek formal feedback from patients more frequently. We checked these areas as part of this comprehensive inspection and found this had been resolved.
The London Psychiatry Centre operates a consultant led out-patient service to assess and treat people with mental health needs. Patients of the service include children and young people, older adults and people with substance misuse problems.
The practice manager at the service is also the registered manager. A registered manager is a person who is registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.
We spoke to 3 patients and reviewed several comments and feedback from a patient survey that the service had conducted. All the comments were positive, describing the service as caring, supportive and compassionate. Patients told us that they were treated with dignity and respect and were seen quickly.
Our key findings were:
• Staff assessed patients’ treatment needs holistically.
• Patients described staff as compassionate and supportive, and they felt involved in decisions about their care and treatment.
• Patients at risk of physical health problems linked to their mental health problems or treatment had investigations or were referred to specialists.
• The service developed and made changes to address the specific needs of patients. These included assessment tools in different languages and a specific complaints form designed for children and young people.
The areas where the provider should make improvements are:
- The service should ensure that all staff are up to date with completing mandatory training.