A COUNCIL committee has found that Hill Crest Mental Health Ward is making improvements following a damning inspection last year.
Worcestershire County Council’s Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee met recently to seek assurance the local health trust was taking steps to implement the changes requested in a Care Quality Commission (CQC) report.
The report said Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust did not ensure the environment at Hill Crest, was well maintained, that risk assessments were not always created and reviewed in a timely way, and that staff were not confident that concerns raised would be acted on by senior leaders.
The unit is based on the Alexandra Hospital site in Woodrow Drive in Redditch.
Hill Crest Ward, was originally designed to have 25 beds, however in August 2021, this was reduced to 18 to be more manageable.
Natalie Willits director of nursing quality for the health and care trust explained the planned improvements.
She said: “Hill Crest Ward, was originally designed to have 25 beds, however in August 2021, this was reduced to 18 to be more manageable.
“After the challenges of winter we noticed that we were not progressing at the pace that we had hoped.
“We therefore decided to reduce the number of bed from 18 to 10 and that number continues to be in place.”
Further improvements included a new leadership structure, changes to staffing, including regular agency staff, increased therapy, greater patient voice and advocacy and enhancements to the structure of the building.
When asked whether there was enough leadership capacity, it was clarified that additional funding had been secured and the Quality Improvement post was a brand new role.
The CQC had recently revisited Hill Crest and although the full report had not yet been published, it was suggested that Inspectors had recognised that improvements were being made and there were no immediate concerns.
