Inspectors from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) have found 28 mental health units run by private companies to be “inadequate” in the past three years, leading to fears that vulnerable patients are receiving poor and unsafe care. Psychiatrists are calling for a public inquiry to investigate the widespread nature of poor substandard care from private providers.
The CQC has rated 16 independently run mental health units as inadequate so far in 2019 and it rated four others in the same category in 2018, and eight in 2017.
The CQC’s latest inspection report includes how inspectors had found a patient with “unexplained injuries”, opportunities for patients to kill themselves and staff asleep while on duty at Cygnet Newbus Grange hospital, in Darlington. It has since been put into special measures and its 10 patients moved elsewhere.
Full story in The Guardian, 25 September 2019
