Cotswold Spa Hospital

Cotswold Spa hospital provides a specialist inpatient eating disorder service for children, young people and adults aged 13-25 years. Patients are routinely funded by the NHS but can be privately funded. Cotswold Spa was taken over by Elysium Healthcare in September 2020. Prior to this it was owned by another provider.

Our rating of this location stayed the same. We rated it as good because:

• The service provided safe care. The ward environments clean. The wards had enough nurses and doctors. Staff assessed and managed risk well. They minimised the use of restrictive practices, managed medicines safely and followed good practice with respect to safeguarding.
• Staff developed holistic, recovery-oriented care plans informed by a comprehensive assessment. They provided a range of treatments suitable to the needs of the patients and in line with national guidance about best practice. Staff engaged in clinical audit to evaluate the quality of care they provided.
• Managers ensured that these staff received training, supervision and appraisal. The ward staff worked well together as a multidisciplinary team and with those outside the ward who would have a role in providing aftercare.
• Staff understood and discharged their roles and responsibilities under the Mental Health Act 1983 and the Mental Capacity Act 2005. They followed good practice with respect to young people’s competency and capacity to consent to or refuse treatment.
• Staff treated patients with compassion and kindness, respected their privacy and dignity, and understood the individual needs of patients. They actively involved patients and families and carers in care decisions.
• Staff planned and managed discharge well and liaised well with services that could provide aftercare.
• The service was well led, and the governance processes ensured that ward procedures ran smoothly.

However:

• There was no clinical psychologist at the time of our inspection. The provider had recruited to a permanent position but was not starting until December. The service had specialist support from other services and the existing multidisciplinary team were able to offer therapeutic interventions.
• Family and patient feedback was mixed and there were some issues raised by families and carers. However, at the time of our inspection we found that the hospital had made progress in respect of the concerns that patients and families and carers had made.
• The consultant psychiatrist and ward doctor were not up to date with their immediate life support training at the time of our inspection.
• There was an interim hospital manager, who was the registered manager at the time of our inspection and a locum consultant psychiatrist, the hospital had not yet recruited permanent staff to these roles.