Care quality at Milton Keynes' inpatient mental health unit is among the very best

The centre’s two wards - Hazel and Willow - have received accreditation under the AIMS for Working Age Adults initiative, assuring staff, service users, commissioners and regulators of the quality of the service being provided.

It means the centre, which is run by CNWL, can show that it meets national guidelines and standards.

The initiative is part of the Royal College of Psychiatry’s Centre for Quality Improvement, which identifies and reviews good practice and high quality care and helps services to identify and address areas for improvement.

The process involved both staff and patients and took more than 20 months. Improvements that came out of this included:-

• A two way communication system in the seclusion room;

• patient safety call buttons in all bedrooms; and

• improvement in the nature and number of evening and weekend activities.

The centre also needed to show it had robust processes for supervision, mandatory training and medicines management among others.

The process involved a wide range of people; staff from all professional backgrounds as well as service users and carers.

Trust Chief executive Claire Murdoch said: “I cannot express highly enough, my utter delight and admiration for this wonderful achievement. Quite incredible.

“An untold number of people have worked so hard for this accreditation and knowing where we started from it is an extraordinary achievement. Well done!”