North Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust

We were concerned about the safety of some of the ward environments. Many of these were issues that we had raised at our last inspection. Staf did not always assess risks on wards or manage risk from ligature points well; including on wards with poor lines of sight. The Christopher unit and older people wards that admitted both men and women did not comply with the requirement to provide same-sex accommodation. The Christopher unit’s seclusion room did not meet the standards outlined in the Mental Health Act Code of Practice. Staf subjected patients to blanket restrictions on acute wards. The trust was not sharing learning from incidents efectively with staf and the trust’s incident reporting policy and procedures needed updating to reflect national guidance.