The ‘State of Care’ report draws on evidence gathered through the CQCs performance and regulation activities to evaluate how health and social care services have performed over the last year and areas in which it deems improvements are necessary.
Overall the report found improvements over recent years in health and social care, in particular reduced waiting times in accident and emergency departments, more people living independently at home, decreased rates of hospital infection rates and that 63% of NHS Trusts were rated good or excellent. However the report also cautions that some services are lagging behind the pack and pockets of poor practice remain, notably in safeguarding and staff training.
In specific reference to mental health services the CQC highlighted the following areas:
- 81 per cent of mental health trusts have agreements in place for communication between mental health and children’s services;
- 27% of people using acute mental health care were not as involved in their care as they wanted;
- Review of specialist community mental health services found that only half of trusts provided adequate access to out-of-hours support for people with mental health needs;
- People from minority ethnic groups continue to be over-represented among those detained under the Mental Health Act.
- Standards requiring NHS staff to participate in mandatory training programmes in 2009 had the lowest overall compliance rate of all minimum standards, however compliance rates were 90% in mental health trusts.
- In most trusts it was found that older people were denied access to the full range of mental health services.
- Between 82% and 92% of acute and specialist trusts, PCTs and mental health trusts achieved a performance indicator that requires them to monitor information on ethnic group.
- 78% of councils are developing specialist services that offer health and mental health care (such as psychiatry, psychology, speech and language therapy) and social care (such as advocacy services, behavioural support and home care).
The CQC also published their 5 year Strategy today which sets out the organisations key priorities and how they intend to go about achieving them. Future priorities include making sure that care is centred on people’s needs and championing joined-up care.
As part of its regulatory activity the Strategy set out that the CQC will be responsible for Mental Health Visits, where Mental Heath Act Commissioners will monitor the care of people whose rights are restricted under the Act, check how legal powers of compulsory care and treatment are being used, and make sure that people’s interests are protected.
For more information about this and to download copies of the documents visit the CQC website: http://www.cqc.org.uk