- SERVICE PROVIDER
Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust
This is an organisation that runs the health and social care services we inspect
Report from 15 April 2025 assessment
Contents
Ratings - Forensic inpatient or secure wards
Our view of the service
Date of assessment 6 March to 22 April 2024: Brockfield House has 7 wards altogether and provides care and treatment for male and female patients with a mental health disorder in a secure setting. During this assessment we visited five wards: Alpine, Forest, Aurora, Fuji and Causeway Ward. This service was last inspected in 2018 and rated as good overall. We carried out this unannounced assessment because we had received information of concern relating to patient care and treatment on the forensic wards. We assessed a total of 23 quality statements from the safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led key questions and found areas of good practice and one area of concern. The scores for these areas have been combined with scores based on the key question ratings from the last inspection. Our overall rating remains good. The wards had enough qualified, skilled and experienced staff to ensure people’s safety and meet their needs in a secure setting. The service had a proactive and positive culture of safety and minimised the use of restrictive practices. Staff assessed risks to patient's health and safety and mitigated those risks. Staff ensured medicines were managed safely. The service provided a range of treatments suitable to the needs of the patients cared for on a forensic ward. Staff actively sought information and listened to patients. The service valued a diverse workforce and worked towards an inclusive and fair culture by improving equality for staff. The trust fostered a positive culture where staff felt that they could speak up. Leaders worked well with their partners across the local system. Concerns about safety were listened to by senior leaders and safety events were investigated and reported thoroughly. However, we found a breach of the legal regulation as people were not always involved in planning their care and staff did not always maintain patients’ privacy.
People's experience of this service
We spoke with 13 patients and 8 carers during the assessment. Most patients said they felt safe on the ward and there was enough staff. Patients said if they didn’t feel safe, they would talk to the ward manager or staff. One patient said they had experienced aggression once and that staff supported them with this. Four patients said they did not feel safe on the wards from other patients and felt that when they had raised this with staff, nothing had been done. Nine patients said that staff do not always knock on their bedroom doors before entering, which compromised their privacy. A carer told us that observations at night time were very disruptive and woke their relative up, impacting on their sleep. Whilst patients told us they had signed a copy of their care plan, they had not been involved in discussions about their care plans. Patients were not provided with a user friendly copy of their care plan to refer to. Patients described staff as mostly respectful and polite, with 8 patients describing good relationships with staff and naming specific staff members that they had good relationships with. One patient said that staff were forever changing and not there long enough to get to know. Patients felt that most staff were interested in their well-being. Nine patients said that activities were cancelled all the time due to staffing and the number of activities had decreased since Christmas. However, 3 patients said they had never had activities cancelled, and they had lots of leave to do their own things. Five patients said that staff responded to complaints and concerns. However, they said nothing happens very fast. A further 3 patients said they would be wasting their time raising concerns or complaints and did not feel listened to or receive a resolution. Carers we spoke with were mostly positive about their experience of Brockfield House and felt their loved ones were receiving good care.