Cygnet Alders Clinic is a 20 bed rehabilitation service in Gloucester that provides assessment, treatment and rehabilitation for women with personality disorder and complex needs.
The latest inspection was an unannounced inspection on the 28th and 29th March. The comprehensive inspection looked at all five key lines of enquiry. Improvements were identified in the ‘Safe’ and ‘Well Led’ domains and as a result the service now has a ‘Good’ rating across all five domains.
The full report, published on the CQC website, highlights many areas of positive practice, including:
- Staff treated service users with compassion and kindness. They respected service users’ privacy and dignity.
- Care plans were personalised, holistic and recovery orientated. The service users’ voice had been included in respect of their views and wishes.
- Staff helped service users live healthier lives by supporting them to take part in programmes or giving advice. Staff provided smoking cessation and support to service users.
- Staff from different disciplines worked together as a team to benefit service users. They supported each other to make sure service users had no gaps in their care.
- Staff supported service users with activities outside the service, such as work, education, and family relationships.
- Staff supported, informed, and involved families or carers.
- Family members spoken with said they felt their relative was “receiving effective care” and felt that the 1:1 group psychology session were “very beneficial.”
- Staff carefully planned service users discharge and worked with care managers and coordinators to make sure this went well.
- The manager on Severn ward had organised a monthly well-woman group to look at areas such as physical and reproductive health.
- The registered manager and clinical lead were visible and approachable for service users and staff and had an open-door policy for informal discussions, advice and support when required.
Alison Woods, Hospital Manager, said, “I am really delighted that the CQC’s latest inspection has upgraded Cygnet Alders Clinic to Good in all domains which reflects the continuous focus and hard work of the Alders Team to deliver increasingly high quality care to all of our service users. We couldn’t have achieved this fantastic success without teamwork and a shared commitment to excellence.
“The most pleasing aspect of the inspection report is the consistent references to staff who the inspectors described as compassionate, supportive and kind, respectful of service user’s privacy and dignity and who understand the individual needs of our service users. This is something that I recognise and see every day in my work at Cygnet Alders Clinic and I am incredibly proud of the Alders Team. It’s a pleasure to work with such a dedicated group of staff.
“We have been on a journey of improvement over the last 7 months since I took up post and I very much look forward to carrying this journey on as there is more to be done to get us to Outstanding!”
The team celebrated their new CQC rating with a special homemade cake.
