Cygnet Hospital Wyke is now out of special measures after CQC visit

Cygnet Hospital Wyke, on Huddersfield Road, has been the subject of a number of serious concerns and damning inspection reports in recent years. 

Following a three-day visit in February, inspectors acknowledged improvements had been made but there was still more to be done. 

In a report, they said: “Since our last inspection, the provider had taken action to increase patient safety and improve the quality of care. However, at this inspection, we identified issues with governance and some areas of practice had deteriorated due to the re-prioritisation of resources during the Covid 19 pandemic.”

The report said climb risk assessments relating to outside space across the hospital did not contain completion dates and the ligature risk assessment for the Adarna ward was incomplete.

Concern was also raised that staff on the Adarna ward - a high-dependency rehabilitation ward for men with autism and/or learning disabilities - did not always regularly check the resuscitation equipment.

Inspectors said staff did not always monitor patients’ physical health after they were given medicine via injection, while seclusion records for the psychiatric intensive care unit and acute mental health ward were “not line line with the provider’s policy or Mental Health Act code of practice”. 

The CQC also raised concern that care environments were not always “fully therapeutic” and the seclusion room required decoration and repair.

However, staff were said to provide patients with “compassionate and respectful” care, with effective de-escalation skills and a “commitment to reducing restrictive practices”. 

The report added: “Across the hospital, the multi-disciplinary teams were newly established and developing working relationships internal and external to the hospital. Leaders were visible and supportive. Staff could raise concerns confidently without fear.

"The hospital was clean and mostly well maintained. Staff followed infection prevention and control measures very well.”

Overall, the hospital is rated as ‘requires improvement’ and in all key questions apart from ‘are services caring?’ for which it is judged to be ‘good’.

A spokesperson for the hospital said: “We are pleased the regulator has recognised the extensive improvements made at Cygnet Hospital Wyke that have increased patient safety and improved the quality of care, and upgraded the hospital’s CQC rating.

"This has come during an exceptionally challenging year for all health care services, where we have had to adapt swiftly to new ways of working to keep patients safe, and, as the report recognises, we have followed infection prevention and control measures very well.

"During the pandemic, we also opened a high dependency rehabilitation ward for men suffering a mental illness with an additional diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder, in addition to our existing acute and psychiatric intensive care wards, to meet demand for these services."

They added: "We take our responsibility to our patients and staff very seriously. As well as having a full range of specialists to meet the needs of patients, delivering personalised, holistic and recovery-focused care and treatment in line with national guidance about best practice, the report singles out our much-valued staff for the compassion and respect they show towards patients, and this contributed to the hospital receiving a Good rating for the key line of enquiry of caring. 

"We are grateful to all our staff who have shown such dedication to patient care and have worked hard to create a positive culture at the hospital for our patients and their families.

"We have taken board all the CQC’s comments and have already taken action to meet the additional requirements, and look forward to demonstrating these at future inspections.”