{"id":200294,"date":"2025-10-09T14:14:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T14:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/200294\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T14:14:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T14:14:09","slug":"cqc-says-kent-patients-detained-beyond-time-permitted-by-law-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/200294\/","title":{"rendered":"CQC says Kent patients ‘detained beyond time permitted by law’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"GoogleGoogle<\/p>\n

Assessment centres in Maidstone, Canterbury and Dartford were assessed<\/p>\n

An NHS mental health service is not always detaining patients in line with legal requirements, a regulator has found.<\/p>\n

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) reviewed 15 records at assessment centres in Kent and found nine of the patients “had been detained beyond the time permitted by law”.<\/p>\n

Inspectors said they issued a warning notice to Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust, which runs the centres in Maidstone, Canterbury and Dartford.<\/p>\n

Trust chief executive Sheila Stenson accepted the report made for “difficult reading” but said staff had a “detailed plan in place” to address the issues.<\/p>\n

The CQC downgraded the rating for the mental health crisis services from “good” to “requires improvement” after the March inspection.<\/p>\n

According to its report, trust staff “did not always demonstrate the duty of candour and apologise” when patients were detained longer than legally permitted.<\/p>\n

Managers claimed “a lack of availability of inpatient beds and wider system pressures” caused delays, inspectors wrote, but “did not have a reporting mechanism for this”.<\/p>\n

People can be detained in a place of safety for up to 24 hours pending an assessment if they appear to have a mental disorder and authorities believe it’s necessary on safety grounds, according to the NHS<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The CQC found centres at St Martin’s Hospital in Canterbury and Littlebrook Hospital in Dartford did not give users “direct access to outside space and fresh air”.<\/p>\n

Staff at assessment centres were “unaware” of translator services and used Google translate instead, inspectors said.<\/p>\n

‘Increased risk’<\/p>\n

Inspectors examining the trust’s community service found high demand and insufficient staffing capacity.<\/p>\n

The trust “removed processes to proactively monitor risk to people who were waiting for assessments”, the CQC said, which “increased risk of people’s mental health deteriorating without the service’s knowledge”.<\/p>\n

One person “had still not started their initial intervention and had to wait six months for a medication review” despite numerous hospitalisations, according to the report.<\/p>\n

Trust staff had to contend with unreliable internet but “shared a compassionate approach to supporting people in their care to have an improved quality of life”, inspectors wrote.<\/p>\n

Community services were rated “requires improvement” and for the “safe” category, rated “inadequate”.<\/p>\n

The trust’s chief executive Ms Stenson accepted the findings and said the trust was “committed to delivering significant service improvements”.<\/p>\n

She said: “We shared our plan to respond to the warning notice within weeks and urgent changes were made immediately.”<\/p>\n

Serena Coleman, CQC deputy director of operations in Kent, said the trust’s community care “declined significantly” since its previous inspection in 2020.<\/p>\n

She said it had “told the trust exactly where improvements are urgently needed” and would “continue to monitor services closely”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Google Assessment centres in Maidstone, Canterbury and Dartford were assessed An NHS mental health service is not always…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[49,48,84,393,394],"class_list":{"0":"post-200294","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}