Wiltshire mental health service responds to criticism (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Wiltshire mental health service responds to criticism

10:02am Monday 20th August 2012 in Local By Jill Crooks

The Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership (AWP) has responded to a critical report from the Care Quality Commission, which said the partnership had failed to meet essential standards.

A spokesman for AWP said: “These inspections were undertaken midway through a major redesign project involving more than 700 staff and 30 teams, designed to tackle historical weaknesses and to deliver more responsive services.

“During this transition, a range of measures was put in place to ensure service users were supported effectively but the scale of change caused some short term problems which we reported to the CQC ahead of the inspection.

“Some of the problems were exacerbated by initial difficulties in recruiting permanent staff with the right skills but in recent weeks more than 30 people have been recruited and more are in the pipeline, reducing reliance on temporary staff.

“We recognise that any major change is unsettling which is why we have done our best to support service users, carers and staff through the transition from the old to the new service.

“We are confident that we have the right actions in place to deal with the issues highlighted in the CQC report and are confident that when we are next inspected these moderate concerns will no longer exist.”