- Independent mental health service
The Langford Centre
Report from 25 June 2024 assessment
Contents
Ratings
Our view of the service
The Langford Centre is an independent mental health hospital providing care and treatment to working-age adults with severe mental illness. The Langford Centre provides low secure forensic services, high-dependency rehabilitation services and acute inpatient mental health services to male and female working-age adults. Most patients are detained under the Mental Health Act (1983). The service is provided by The Langford Clinic Limited. The hospital is purpose built with seventy-six beds over five wards.
The Langford Centre registered with CQC in July 2011 to deliver the regulated activities:
• Assessment or medical treatment for persons detained under the Mental Health Act 1983
• Treatment of disease, disorder or injury
• Diagnostics and screening procedures.
The service had a Registered Manager.
We carried out a responsive assessment of The Langford Centre following a series of concerns around poor medicines management, poor safeguarding practices, staff competencies around safe and therapeutic observation, and an increased number of patient incidents including patients bringing contraband items onto the wards. At this assessment, we assessed 3 assessment service groups; Acute wards for adults of working age and psychiatric intensive care units where we assessed 15 quality statements, long stay or rehabilitation mental health wards for working age adults where we assessed 12 quality statements, and forensic inpatient or secure wards where we assessed 15 quality statements. For all three assessment service groups, we assessed the quality statements under the safe and well-led key questions. We visited the following wards: • Pevensey 16 bed male – Low Secure Mental Health Unit • Fairlight 16 bed female – Acute Mental Health Unit • Cooden 15 bed male – Acute Mental Health Unit • Seaford 8 bed male - Long Stay Rehabilitation Ward • Arlington 10 bed male – Acute Mental Health Unit.
The service was last inspected in March 2023 and rated requires improvement overall. We published the report based on the Care Quality Commission (CQC) previous inspection approach using key lines of enquiry (KLOEs), prompts and ratings characteristics. This assessment has been completed following the CQC’s new approach to assessment, the Single Assessment Framework (SAF). We carried out our on-site assessment on 9 and 10 July 2024. This was an unannounced assessment, which meant the provider was unaware of our assessment visit. We assessed against the two key questions ‘are the services Safe?’ and ‘are the services Well-led?’ and awarded a rating under each of these key questions. We did not inspect the key questions effective, caring or responsive at this inspection. The ratings for effective, caring and responsive were awarded at the previous inspection of the service and have been used to aggregate an overall rating.
Our overall rating of The Langford Centre remained the same. We rated it as requires improvement because the provider had failed to address significant concerns that we raised at the last inspection in 2023, including potential ligature anchor points across the wards. A ligature anchor point is anything that could be used to attach a cord or other material for the purpose of hanging or strangulation. Other concerns from the previous inspection which remained a concern on this inspection included the provider failing to ensure that staff followed safe systems and processes to safely manage medicines, the provider was still not operating a clear model for the long stay rehabilitation services in line with the Royal College of Psychiatrists recommendations, and the overall governance processes around the management of ligature risks and environmental risks remained a concern.