A social care partnership specialising in mental health support has been rated as "good" by the Care Quality Commission.

Kent and Medway NHS Partnership (KMPT) provides care and treatment to those with mental health issues, learning disabilities and substance misuse.

Around 1.8 million people across Kent and Medway are helped by the service and a CQC report based on findings between October and November 2018 found the partnership to be doing a good job.

The trust is one of the largest mental health trusts in England and covers an area of 1,450 square miles. The trust has an annual revenue of £178 million and employs approximately 3,500 staff who work across 66 buildings on 33 sites.

CQC sent inspectors to look at acute wards for adults of working age and psychiatric intensive care units because they had previously been rated as requiring improvement during an inspection in January 2017.

Community mental health services were also inspected having also previously been deemed to require improvement.

Across the trust, inspectors found most of the core services they inspected to be safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led.

The trust was rated safe, effective, responsive and well led as good overall and its care to be outstanding.

Patients spoke positively about the way staff treated them and staff were knowledgeable about their patients and worked hard to develop strong relationships with them.

It was also noted the trust had made significant improvements in the overall safety and quality of the community mental health teams for working age adults.

Despite this the acute wards for working age adults and psychiatric intensive care units required improvement.

Theses wards were deemed to not be sufficiently safe, effective or well-led.

On top of that, while service level managers were highly engaged and delivering good leadership in the majority of core services, at board level the trust lacked focus in some key areas.

Forensic inpatient services and community based mental health services for older people were rated as outstanding.

Areas KMPT must improve on include the ward environment is safe from risks such as fires, flooding and ligature risks are minimised.

Medicines must be stored safely and appropriate actions taken when prescribing and administering medicines.

Chief Executive Helen Greatorex said: “I am delighted that the Commission found so many areas of improvement across so many of our services. We are delighted at some of the themes they highlighted. In the Commission's feedback, they told us that they found staff, at all levels, from a wide range of disciplines, reported feeling proud of the care and treatment they provided to patients.

“Our staff are absolutely committed to delivering the best possible quality of care at all times and the Commission’s report reflects that attention to the detail of patient care.”

“Inspectors have told us that they saw highly motivated staff who are inspired to improve patient care in every way possible. They also told us that, without exception, every single member of staff told us of how much the culture of the organisation had changed since the last inspection in 2017. We know that happy staff deliver high quality care, and KMPT is working to ensure that we are attracting talented staff, as well as retaining our existing workforce.

“One of our key priorities, since I joined in June 2016, has been to stop patients having to be sent out of area for admission to general acute beds. When we started our work on this, we had seventy-six patients in private beds up and down the country. The experience for patients and their families was awful, and it was costing the NHS over £1.3m per month. Within six months of starting the project, we had recalled all our patients and created capacity to look after them locally. We have sustained that position since December 2018 and the Commission recognised this work in their report.”

“There is of course always still work to do and we will continue to focus on continuously improving the quality of care we provide.

“We have already started an ambitious change programme focusing on areas we can improve. Some of our teams are working on pilots in both community and acute areas, and when we have the results available we’ll share them with everyone to determine the right way forward.

“Our utmost priority is to ensure we are delivering the right care, at the right time, in the right place. Brilliant care through brilliant people.”