Child safety ‘inadequate’ at a Birmingham NHS trust

Chronic under-staffing and long waits for treatment were witnessed by inspectors who found child safety failings at an NHS trust.

Following a Care Quality Commission (CQC) visit to Birmingham Community Healthcare Trust, the safety of children and young people’s services was rated “inadequate”.

Health visitors were juggling caseloads of up to 500 children, the CQC found.

The trust welcomed the report and said there was “much” it did well.

It was given an overall rating of “requires improvement”.

Among inspectors’ findings was that a team overseeing looked-after children had about 600 young people per practitioner, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

In the six months to March 2018, only 36% of patients were referred to the children’s development centre within the required 18-week timeframe, with the national target being 92%.

Similarly, the benchmark was missed in occupational therapy, physiotherapy and speech and language therapy during the same period.

In addition to the category of safety, the leadership of children’s community health services was also rated “inadequate”.

A “requires improvement” rating in the areas of effectiveness and responsiveness meant the trust’s children’s services were found “inadequate” overall.

The latest inspection also took in community health inpatient services, the safety of which was rated as requiring improvement.

Ranking “good” in all other criteria, those services were deemed “good” overall.

Community end of life care, dental services, learning disabilities and health services for adults have not been inspected and retain their overall “good” ratings from 2014.

But the latest findings have led to the trust’s overall rating of “requires improvement”, with its overall safety and leadership similarly branded.

Welcoming the findings for inpatient services, Richard Kirby, the trust’s chief executive, said: “We know that our children’s teams are doing a difficult job in challenging circumstances and we have already begun to make the necessary improvements to ensure we provide better support to our staff and better care to our patients.”

He said the trust recognised it had “room to improve in children’s services and areas including risk management and other systems, and the freedom for staff to speak up”.