Updated 14 September 2023
Wiltshire Health and Care LLP was established in 2016 as a Limited Liability Partnership by three local NHS trusts to provide community healthcare services across Wiltshire. The provider employs 1044, whole time equivalent staff. The core services provided by Wiltshire Health and Care are:
- Community health services for adults
- Community health for inpatients
- Community mental health services for people with learning disabilities or autistic people
- Urgent care services (minor injury units)
Wiltshire Health and Care LLP (WHC) provides services from 17 sites.
The provider delivers NHS community services for adults and children across Wiltshire.
Community inpatient services are provided at Chippenham, Warminster and Savernake community hospitals and they provide a total of 92 beds.
Urgent care services are provided at Chippenham Community Hospital and Trowbridge Community Hospital.
We last inspected Wiltshire Health and Care LLP in 2017 and rated them Good.
During this inspection we carried out inspections of the four core services provided by Wiltshire Health and Care LLP and a well led inspection. The community health services for adults, community inpatient services, urgent care services and Community mental health services for people with a learning disability or autism were last inspected in July 2017.
It was also the first time we had undertaken a separate well-led inspection of the providers leadership team. Our findings are in the section headed Is this organisation well-led?
Regarding this inspection report it should be noted that this inspection did not include a Use of Resources rating.
Although Wiltshire Health and Care LLP is not an NHS trust, the word trust is used erroneously in several places in the report as the word cannot be removed from the standardised inspection report template.
How we carried out the inspection
The well led inspection team comprised of 2 Specialist Advisors, 1 national professional advisor, 1 CQC deputy director of the network, 1 CQC operations manager, 1 CQC senior specialist and 1 CQC inspector.
Specialist advisors are experts in their field who we do not directly employ.
Our rating of services stayed went down. We rated them as requires improvement because:
- The provider did not have robust governance systems in place that gave the operations board assurance that risks were mitigated. Delivery plan goals were not written in a way that allowed the operations board to measure their progress against each goal. Not all non-executive directors received a full induction to the provider.
- The provider had not developed a plan to address inequalities experienced by BAME employees.
- Patients were waiting for extended periods of time when they sought attention using call bells. Inpatients risks were not identified, assessed, monitored, and reviewed to reduce or remove them. Inpatients records were not always accurate or complete.
However:
- The provider trained staff to recognise abuse and they took appropriate action to safeguard patients. Staff understood how to manage incidents and acted on any lessons learnt. Staff had access to the correct PPE for their role and followed infection control procedures. There was good governance at the local team and ward level.
- There is a strong person-centred culture. Staff focus on enabling people to remain independent. The provider ensured staff were trained in the key skills they needed to provide good care and treatment. There were policies and procedures in place based on national good practice guidance.
- Staff showed patients, their families and other carers respect. They encouraged people using their services to be involved in their care. Feedback from patients described staff as being friendly, caring and professional. The provider actively collected feedback to help improve services.
You can find further information about how we carry out our inspections on our website: www.cqc.org.uk/what-we-do/how-we-do-our-job/what-we-do-inspection.