A MENTAL health trust has acknowledged it has more work to do despite retaining its overall ‘good’ rating from inspectors.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) said the Tees, Esk and Wear Valley NHS Foundation Trust had to improve the safety of some of its long stay rehabilitation wards for patients.

It also said it was not always complying with Department of Health guidance on mixed sex accommodation, which includes the provision of female lounges.

The trust provides a range of mental health, learning disability and eating disorder services for the 1.4m people living in County Durham and Darlington, the Tees Valley and most of North Yorkshire.

Following an inspection in January it has retained its ‘good’ overall rating, but its rating in the well-led category dropped from outstanding to good.

The CQC said community mental health services were outstanding in the way they cared for patients.

Meanwhile, inspectors saw that staff engaged with patients in a “caring, compassionate and respectful manner” on wards and also carried out comprehensive assessments of their needs.

The trust was praised for working actively to promote the wellbeing of its 6,500 staff and as a result the overall sickness rate was low and morale generally high.

However concern was raised that not enough was being done to identify suicide risks, in terms of the environment around patients, and the trust was told that each ward must have a survey of these reviewed annually in line with policy.

Dr Paul Lelliott, the Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals and CQC lead for mental health, said inspectors would return at a later date to check on the progress of areas identified for improvement.

Colin Martin, chief executive at Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We welcome the Care Quality Commission’s report, which contained some positive feedback about our services.

“We are pleased to have retained our ‘good’ rating and that the work we’ve done with staff, service users, carers and partners particularly in the Vale of York to improve services has been recognised.

“We acknowledge that there is still more to do and we will continue to work with people to address the issues highlighted in the report.”