The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust ‘good’ in four out of five quality measurements – caring, responsive, well-led, effective and ‘requiring improvement’ for safe.

This gives Oxford Health an over-all rating of ‘Good’ based on weighted scoring across all services inspected. No enforcement notices were issued and the majority (13 out of 16) of the trust’s services were rated ‘good’ (12) or ‘outstanding’ (1). The overall result pulls together ratings from a CQC visit to the trust in March and April 2018 to check the quality of eight core services, with results from previous inspections of eight other community and mental health services. The over-all rating of ‘Good’ is unchanged since a CQC inspection in June 2016.

As the body that assesses the quality of NHS services in England the CQC found that Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust was well-led with: skilled, knowledgeable and experienced management. Leadership training was widely available to staff and there were good working governance systems. The trust was responsive to people’s needs across services especially in a crisis, including reducing the need for police involvement in mental health crises. Patients and staff were able to give feedback; they knew how to raise concerns and there was good learning from incidents and complaints. Few services had long waiting lists. There was strong team working across most services, care and treatment was well monitored and findings from this were used to make improvements, so that services were overall effective. Perhaps most importantly from the trust’s perspective, staff were found to be caring and noted to be ‘treating patients with kindness, courtesy and sensitivity’.

Improvements are required in safety to ensure that across all trust services the same high standards are observed. Seven out of the core 16 mental health and community teams run by the trust have work to do to further improve in this area and plans are underway to address this. This includes the establishment of a new Healthcare Improvement Centre, which is using international best practice and practical expertise to foster improvement skills, for all levels of trust staff. The centre has a particular focus on safety and quality of care.

Stuart Bell, Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust chief executive said:
“The CQC have given some very positive messages about the Trust over all in this report, and in particular with really good reviews about four of the five domains (caring, safe, effective, responsive, well-led). There are some areas where we think we need to do more, and around ‘safety’ in particular. The majority of areas for improvement are things we recognise and have plans in place to address. I’m pleased to say that the trust has received no enforcement actions and that inspectors found that National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines were followed.

“I am very proud of our caring staff for their contribution to delivering and improving our services before, during and after the CQC inspection. We made a major commitment to improving our services back in 2014 and we value the insights that our own efforts and this recent inspection process have given us. All of this helps our learning and we continue to work together to improve our services to benefit the people we serve.”

Read the CQC report.