First visit to a community mental health service in our latest local visit reports
Publication date: 15 Nov, 2023
The Mental Welfare Commission today published 11 new reports following visits to mental health and learning disability services in Scotland, and for the first time included a visit to a community mental health team.
Every year the Commission visits around 100 wards and units for people with mental ill health, learning disability, dementia or related conditions in Scotland. From this year, these visits are being extended to community mental health teams.
During the visits Commission visitors talk to patients, relatives and staff, and examine records. A report is published after each visit. The Commission expects a response to each of its recommendations within three months of the reports being published.
Today’s reports highlight positive findings, aspects of care and treatment where we think the service could do better, and making recommendations for change where necessary.
Claire Lamza, executive director (nursing), Mental Welfare Commission, said:
“As more care and treatment takes place in the community, we have expanded our visits programme to include community mental health services.
“Today’s reports include the very first of our visits to one of those services. In this particular case we found a number of aspects of care and treatment to be in need of improvement. While this is of concern to us, it underlines how important it is that we include community services in our work.
“Also amongst today’s reports, we were really pleased to see two hospitals where significant, positive changes had taken place following recommendations made on our earlier visits. We were told by both patients and staff that the wards had benefitted from actions taken in response to our recommendations. That is fantastic to hear.”
The reports are for: