“How did it get so bad?” – that’s what the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has been asked after 2 watchdog reports concluded mental health services must improve.
The public body faced questioning at County Hall last week after the Care Quality Commission (CQC) rated the trust’s leadership, community-based mental health services for adults of working age and mental health crisis services ‘requires improvement’.
The trust previously said it has responded ‘positively and proactively’ to findings by the CQC, in a paper published ahead of scrutiny by the adult social care, public health and housing needs committee.
Councillor Claire Critchison, Green Party representative for Chale, Niton and Shorwell, said:
“I see you’ve been going through a lot of organisational change…it sounds like it’s going in the right direction, but…how did it get so bad?
“Why couldn’t you make these changes then that you can now? Is it funding, staff changes? The lived experience out there is really poor and people, if they’ve got an issue, are finding there’s nowhere to turn.”
Earlier in the meeting, Councillor Karl Love, an independent who represents East Cowes, said he measures improvement by what his constituents tell him.
“What they’ve been telling me is that over the last years things are getting worse, not better,” he told the chamber.
Article continues below this advertisement “I’m waiting for them to start telling me things are improving because that’s really what it’s about – the customer experience.”
Lucy Abel, clinical director for the Isle of Wight Division at Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, responded that ‘demand is growing’ which can be seen in ‘lots of services’.
She said:
“Previously, there’s been lots of incremental changes trying to fix things, trying to fix parts of the system, and actually, we’ve run out of road with that – the demand is too great, the money available to do it has got smaller.
“So, we have to change things much more fundamentally which is why we keep mentioning transformation because just tinkering improving isn’t going to make the difference.
“What is helping to make the difference is, rather than us being one mental health division, we are part of a larger mental health organisation with that expertise.
“We’re trying to do wholesale change that is based on best practice.
“We do absolutely seek input from our service users – we get an annual survey and feedback from community mental health services.”
