The Care Quality Commission (CQC) are demanding improvements to ensure children and young people are safe following an unannounced focused inspection at Taplow Manor in Huntercombe Lane South, Maidenhead.
This comprehensive inspection in December was able to follow up on progress made by the service, following previous action taken by CQC.
Taplow Manor is a specialist child and adolescent mental health inpatient service (CAMHS). It provides specialist mental health services for adolescents and young people from 12 to 18 years of age. The hospital delivers specialised clinical care for young people requiring inpatient CAMHS, including psychiatric
intensive care (PICU) and eating disorders.
The service is now in special measures which means it will be kept under close review, by CQC and re-inspected to check sufficient improvements have been made.
Deanna Westwood, CQC’s director of operations in the south, said:
“Following our inspection of Taplow Manor, we still have significant concerns regarding the care of the children and young people living in this service.
“There were concerns related to feeding young people under restraint. While there were care plans in place there was little detail. The recording of feeding a young person via naso-gastric tube when needed did not record of the length the tube that was inserted. No record of which nostril the tube was inserted into and no record of clinical assessment of the nasal cavity. There was no indication the practice guidance had not been followed and there were no incidents of misplacement, however, the recording didn’t have enough detail and evidence of all the interventions undertaken.
“We also reviewed records where rapid tranquilisation had been used. In three of the records the young person had only been followed up for physical health observations for the first hour afterwards and none after that. In the fourth record no physical health observations were recorded and the young person was only noted to be sleeping. This is not what the national guidance or the providers policy states and has a very high impact in terms of the young person’s safety.
“Taplow Manor have made some improvements where we identified that they should, however, this has reduced their focus on other areas which means that children and young people are still not safe. Also, other improvements that we have been assured would take place are not happening at the pace we want to see, given the seriousness of the concerns.
“The leadership at Taplow Manor have had more than enough time to implement new strategies and improvements on the service. We have already taken enforcement action which is still in place.
“When we return if there are no further improvements or we are not satisfied with progress – we will not hesitate to use further action if needed to protect the young people in their care, even if that means removing the registration of the service.”
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