Located on the outskirts of Middlesbrough, Cygnet Newham House is a 20-bed neuropsychiatric care and treatment facility for women. The hospital provides treatment for women affected by acquired brain injuries (ABI) as well as offering those diagnosed with a progressive neurological disease like Huntington’s disease, a longer term placement to support and help manage the progression of their symptoms.
In the new CQC report, published following the first inspection of the service in September, inspectors concluded that it is ‘Good’ across all domains – safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led. They said staff treated service users with compassion and kindness and respected service users’ privacy and dignity.
Inspectors spoke to five service users and five carers as part of the inspection and the feedback was positive. The report stated that service users told inspectors that, “they felt safe in the hospital and that the staff looked after them well. They were able to go out and said that staff encouraged them to be involved in various activities. They liked the food and enjoyed having their hair, make up and nails done in the purpose built, on-site salon.
“The feedback from all the relatives we spoke with was positive. They felt the treatment provided was excellent. All relatives felt involved in decisions, they were invited to meetings about their family member, kept updated and were regularly asked for feedback. They told us staff were responsive, respectful and polite.”
Hospital manager David Williams said everybody at the service was happy with the result of the inspection. He added: “Staff at Cygnet Newham House work incredibly hard every day, to make such a positive difference, to the lives of the women we support. I am very proud of our journey so far, from opening during the lockdown period of Covid, to gaining ‘Good’ in all domains at our first formal external CQC inspection. It is a credit to the commitment, dedication and attention of my team to partnering people in their recovery.
“I’m immensely proud of Cygnet Newham House team and sincerely thank them for living to our values, always putting people first and achieving this encouraging outcome. We are committed to continuing our development at Cygnet Newham House to make it the best service it can be for our service users.”
Inspectors said staff helped service users live healthier lives by supporting them to take part in programmes or giving advice. For example, staff supported service users to go to the local gym and swimming pool and service users regularly participated in walking groups and morning exercises. They were also encouraged to develop everyday life skills such as cooking and cleaning.
The report also commended the safe and clean ward environments and praised staff for their ability to assess and manage risk well. It said staff minimised the use of restrictive practices, managed medicines safely, followed good practice with respect to safeguarding and planned and managed discharge well.
The full report can be found on the CQC website.