Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust

Hampshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust was renamed in 2011 Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust shortly after its acquisition of Hampshire Primary Care Trust's (PCT) community healthcare and hospital services, which had previously operated within the PCT under the name Hampshire Community Health Care. It merged with Oxfordshire Learning Disabilities Trust in 2012.^[1] It is one of the largest mental health and learning disability trusts in England.

Operations

The trust runs Slade House and Evenlode in Oxford, the Ridgeway Centre in High Wycombe, Eastrop House and Parklands Hospital in Basingstoke, Hollybank and Elmleigh in Havant, Postern House in Marlborough, Melbury Lodge and Leigh House in Winchester, Crowlin House and Forest Lodge, Woodhaven, Western Community Hospital, Antelope House and Moorgreen Hospital in Southampton, Ravenswood House in Fareham, Jacobs Lodge in Hounsdown, Chase Community Hospital, Alton Community Hospital, Fordingbridge Hospital, Romsey Hospital, Petersfield Hospital and Gosport War Memorial Hospital.

The Trust is one of eight in a partnership of eight NHS mental health trusts to provide acute mental health inpatient services for military personnel.^[2]

In July 2016 it was announced that the trust would transfer community learning disability services in Oxfordshire to Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust as part of a plan to reduce the area served and the disparate services provided.^[3]

Performance

The Trust's Going Viral programme won the Leadership Innovation category at the first Guardian Healthcare Innovation Awards in November 2013.^[4]

In November 2013 the Care Quality Commission issued an enforcement notice to the trust after inspection of the Headington site found it to be in breach of six essential standards. Slade House was found to be unsafe for patients.^[5]

The trust was named by the Health Service Journal as one of the top hundred NHS trusts to work for in 2015. At that time it had 6662 full time equivalent staff and a sickness absence rate of 4.95%. 64% of staff recommend it as a place for treatment and 53% recommended it as a place to work.^[6]

In November 2013 Peter Walsh, Chief Executive of Action Against Medical Accidents was invited to spend time with the Trust exploring the Duty of candour and what it meant for them.^[7]

Oxfordshire County Council’s adult social care director and local Clinical commissioning groups decided that the trust’s contract to run specialist inpatient services and community teams in Oxfordshire should not be renewed when it expires on December 31 2015 after regulators and commissioners had raised “quality and performance concerns” about inpatient services. The Care Quality Commission rated the trust’s learning disability inpatient services as ‘requiring improvement’ in March 2015 though community learning disability services were rated as ‘good’.^[8]

It is one of the Multispecialty community providers established under the Five Year Forward View and is setting up a contract with a GP practice whereby 10 practice employees - the non-clinical staff, the salaried GPs and two out of the four partners - will become trust employees. The two remaining doctors will continue to own the practice, which will be the joint owner, with the trust, of a company which will hold the General Medical Services Contract.^[9]

It expects a deficit of £2.8 million for 2015/6.^[10]

A report by Mazars for NHS England looked at all 10,306 deaths at the trust between April 2011 and March 2015. According to a draft version of the report leaked to the BBC, 1,454 of these deaths were unexpected, and only 195 were treated as a serious incident requiring investigation. The reports were criticised for being late and of poor quality. Very few deaths of people with learning disability or dementia were investigated and there was little family involvement. Southern Health accepts that its investigations needed to improve, but disputes the report's interpretation of the data.^[11] The trust maintains that it is not an outlier in respect of any mortality indicators and that it investigated the deaths which were its responsibility. 143 deaths were suicide or suspected suicide - comparable with other similar trusts. The vast majority of deaths were of patients for whose care the trust was not primarily responsible.^[12]

Trust chairman Mike Petter and Mark Aspinall one of the public governors resigned in April 2016 after the trust was condemned by the Care Quality Commission for “continuing to put patients at risk” and failing to put in place “robust governance” to investigate incidents, including deaths, and to respond to concerns raised by patients, their carers and staff. Aspinall said the Council of Governors was, as part of the leadership, equally culpable.^[13] John Green another public governor resigned in July 2016 citing the board's "farcical" response to last year's Mazars report ^[14]

The Trust has been subject over the last year to a number of Enforcement Undertakings required by Monitor, the latest being issued on 30 June 2016.^[15]

The learning disability services in Oxfordshire are to be transferred to Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust. Some specialist learning disability services are to be transferred to Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust.^[16]

See also

• List of NHS trusts

References