Healthcare Commission rates the Trust as 'Excellent'
In 2007, the Healthcare Commission’s Annual Healthcheck awarded the Trust an ‘Excellent’ for the quality of its services. This score covers a range of areas including safety of patients, cleanliness and waiting times.
In this category, the Trust was judged to have fully met existing national targets and is fully compliant in meeting core standards. The report also scored the Trust as ‘Excellent’ in meeting new national targets.
In addition, the Trust was rated ‘Good’ for its use of resources, which measures how well it manages its finances. In its report the Healthcare Commission said that based on its assessment, the Trust provides an excellent quality of service to patients having made improvements compared to the previous year.
It also said that the Trust is good at managing its finances and has made improvements in this area as well. The results are an improvement on last year’s results, where the Trust was rated ‘Good’ for quality of services and ‘Fair’ for use of resources.
CSCI inspection highlights quality of services and strong partnerships
The recent Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) report into social care services in Lincolnshire has concluded that Lincolnshire County Council’s partnership working to deliver mental health services – primarily with the Trust – is ‘good’.
The report highlighted strong, formalised partnership arrangements between the Council’s Adult Social Care division and the Trust, as well as a clear strategic commitment to develop partnership arrangements across all stakeholders.
The report went on to highlight how partnerships were maturing between managers at all levels of Adult Social Care and the Trust. It said managers reported a healthier dialogue and the development of a common language as part of an ongoing process rather than a single event at the end of the financial year as happened previously.
The inspectors heard how Trust managers spoke positively of a shift in the culture of adult social care towards a more open, transparent and joint outlook.
The report also highlighted how service users are now supported to be more independent, resulting in reduced costs for the Trust.
Chris Slavin, Trust Chief Executive, said: “We are pleased that CSCI has recognised the strong partnership between the Trust and the County Council. We are also happy that our strong leadership in mental health services, the quality of the services we provide under the Section 75 agreement and our commitment to
long-term partnership working has been positively highlighted.”
CSCI looks at the whole picture of social care in England. This includes social services teams at councils, care homes and care agencies. It regulates, inspects and reviews all social care services in the public, private and voluntary sectors in England, giving a ‘star rating’ to councils.
Trust completes Annual Health Check
The Healthcare Commission's Annual Health Check is the national system for reviewing the performance of all NHS organisations.
Each year, every NHS Trust submits a self-assessment to the Healthcare Commission on how it believes it has performed against 44 core standards laid out for it.
The commission then decides upon the trust’s rating in the annual health check based upon this declaration.
To read the Trust's health check, please click here.