Cygnet Hospital Wyke

Updated 21 March 2025

Cygnet Hospital Wyke is an independent mental health hospital provided by Cygnet Health Care Limited, situated in West Yorkshire. It has been registered with CQC since November 2010. The hospital is registered to provide care and treatment to up to 46 patients and the following regulated activities: • Treatment of disease, disorder or injury • Assessment or medical treatment of persons detained under the Mental Health Act 1983. We conducted an onsite assessment of the location from 26 - 28 November 2024. The assessment was announced on 25 November 2024. The location was assessed as we rated it as inadequate and placed in special measures following an assessment in January 2024 due to concerns about medicines management, quality of care records, monitoring of patients with physical health conditions, checks of medical equipment, monitoring of compliance with the Mental Health Act, infection control procedures, blanket restrictions, autism awareness and completion of patient risk assessments. The majority of the concerns related to the long-stay rehabilitation ward, Adarna within the hospital at the time. The provider, Cygnet Healthcare Limited, had taken the decision to discontinue this service, so this latest assessment only relates to the acute wards for adults of working age and psychiatric intensive care unit. The acute wards for adults of working age and psychiatric intensive care unit comprised 3 wards for male patients; Kingfisher and Phoenix were the two acute wards and Bennu was the psychiatric intensive care unit. The hospital had a registered manager and an accountable controlled drugs officer. We have inspected this location 14 times previously. At this inspection, we inspected all five key questions across all three wards. We gathered information from people using the service and their loved ones, staff and other external stakeholders. We observed the care being provided and reviewed a range of documents including care records and policies and procedures relating to the running of the hospital. We rated the service as good. The service had made improvements and was no longer in breach of regulations. The quality of care records had improved. Risk assessments were up to date and were being regularly reviewed. The medicines management processes in the hospital were in-line with good practice. The provider now had enough staff to ensure people’s safety and meet their needs. The provider has demonstrated improvements that have been made. The service is no longer rated as inadequate overall or in any of the key questions. Therefore, this service is no longer in special measures.

Updated 3 October 2024

Cygnet Hospital Wyke is an independent mental health hospital provided by Cygnet Health Care Limited, situated in West Yorkshire. The hospital is registered with the Care Quality Commission to provide care and treatment for up to 46 patients and the following regulated activities: • Treatment of disease, disorder or injury • Assessment or medical treatment of persons detained under the Mental Health Act 1983. The hospital has a registered manager and accountable controlled drugs officer. We have inspected this location 14 times previously. This assessment took place between 26 - 28 November 2024 and we announced it on 25 November 2024. The location was previously assessed in January 2024, rated as inadequate and placed into special measures. There were concerns about medicines management, quality of care records, monitoring patients with physical health conditions, checks of medical equipment, compliance with the Mental Health Act, infection control, blanket restrictions, autism awareness and completion of patient risk assessments. The majority of the concerns related to the long-stay rehabilitation ward, Adarna. The provider had taken the decision to discontinue this service, so this latest assessment only relates to the acute wards for adults of working age and psychiatric intensive care unit. There were 2 acute wards (Kingfisher, Phoenix) and 1 psychiatric intensive care unit (Bennu). We gathered information from people using the service, their loved ones, staff and other external stakeholders. We observed the care being provided and reviewed a range of documents relating to the running of the hospital. We rated the service as good. The service had made improvements and was no longer in breach of regulations. The provider has demonstrated improvements that have been made. The service is no longer rated as inadequate overall or in any of the key questions and is, therefore, no longer in special measures.

Updated 3 May 2024

Although this ward falls within the long stay/ rehabilitation core service for CQC inspection purposes, we also used our guidance on inspecting services for people with a learning disability and autistic people to inform the inspection because the ward provides specialist rehabilitation services for autistic people. We expect health and social care providers to guarantee people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices and independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ is the guidance CQC follows to make assessments and judgements about services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it.

Our rating of this location ​went down​. We rated it as ​inadequate​ because: 

• We have taken enforcement action against the provider to make sure they improved their governance systems. This normally limits the rating for that key question to inadequate.

• The service did not provide safe care. It did not manage medicines, medicine fridges and medical supplies safely and risk assessments were not always complete.

• The ward was using both a paper and electronic records system, we found that paper records did not contain the most up to date risk assessments for people in 4 out of 4 records we reviewed.

• Medicine records were found to have been filled in retrospectively by staff when gaps were identified at our inspection.

• Staff were not all bare below the elbow in accordance with the provider’s own policy.

• The environment was not always clean, we found food on the floor, staining on furniture, cigarette ends in the lounge and some of the furniture was ripped.

• People did not always feel safe on the ward and some people told us they did not feel they could approach staff when they needed to talk, despite being on the ward for some time.

• Staff restricted people’s access to items (hot drinks, cups and spoons) on the ward and this was not always based on individually risk assessed needs.

• Staff did not always understand the individual needs of people. They did not always actively involve families and carers in care decisions.

• Physical health was not always managed safely in respect of bowel monitoring, particularly for people taking medication that caused a risk of bowel obstruction.

• The ward environment was still too noisy and steps taken to reduce the level of noise for people since our last inspection had not been fully effective.

• There were gaps in governance processes that failed to identify areas of concerns.

However: 

• There was enough staff working on the ward to keep people safe with low levels of vacancies.

• Mandatory training compliance rates were high and managers had oversight of when training was due to be renewed.

• Use of restrictive practices was minimised and ward staff followed good practice with respect to safeguarding and complaints.

• They provided a range of treatments suitable to the needs of the people and in line with national guidance about best practice.

• Allied health professionals worked with people on a regular basis and had completed specialist training associated with autism.

• We saw some good examples of care plans, positive behavioural support plans and “grab and go” sheets for staff to understand the needs of people using the service..

•  Therapeutic activities took place and people described things they enjoyed doing both on and off the ward.

• Staff worked well with external stakeholders and professionals to support people’s discharge plans.