CQC rates LPT’s specialist community mental health services for children and young people as ‘Good’

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has published a report on Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust’s specialist community mental health services for children and young people, rating them as ‘Good’ following an unannounced inspection in November 2025.

The services were last inspected in November and December 2018 and rated then as ‘Requires Improvement’. The CQC’s new report, published on 10 April, has improved the rating for the service as ‘Good’ overall, with ‘Good’ in the domains of safe, well-led, effective and caring – and ‘Requires Improvement’ for the responsive domain.

Ratings table:

Angela Hillery, chief executive of LPT, said:

“We welcome the report published by the CQC. The improved ratings reflect the significant and positive progress we have made since the last inspection.

“The CQC recognised many areas of high standards, including personalised care plans shaped around each patient’s needs, wishes and feelings; a strong culture of safety and learning; age appropriate and tailored communication; collaborative working between teams and partners to provide safe care and treatment; and visible, inclusive leadership that focused on openness, quality improvement, and learning. They also recognised how the service valued staff wellbeing and created an environment that enabled them to provide high‑quality, person‑centred care.

“I am proud that inspectors recognised that ‘the service consistently treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion, while respecting their privacy and dignity. They provided care to meet people’s needs that was safe, supportive and enabled people to do the things that mattered to them’.”

The report has identified many good areas:

• The service treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion; providing person‑centred care that respected young people’s dignity, privacy and autonomy.
• Staff were well trained, knowledgeable in the Mental Health Act and Mental Capacity Act, and worked collaboratively within a positive safety and learning culture.
• Care was effective and tailored, with thorough assessments and regular reviews of individuals’ health, wellbeing, care and communication needs in partnership with them.
• Staff were skilled at recognising emotional distress and adapting their approach in the moment to help minimise anxiety, discomfort or escalation.
• Young people were supported to understand, manage and make decisions about their own care, promoting independence, choice and control, and helped them reduce future need for care where possible.
• Information and communication were accessible, age‑appropriate and personalised, including how to give feedback and signposting to additional support services, including for those on the waiting list.
• The service was well led, with strong governance, a focus on staff wellbeing, inclusive leadership and had strong evidence of effective multi-agency partnership
• Continuous improvement was embedded, with young people actively involved in service development across Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland.

The CQC have however identified that improvements are needed in relation to two areas: infection control was not always consistent and waiting times for key treatments were still long. We have submitted an action plan to the CQC in response to these areas:

• We have strengthened the identified infection control issues with more robust cleaning schedules that are regularly audited. We have made improvements to our environments, including the completion of repair works and new carpets at Westcotes House.
• The CQC reports that waiting times for the Crisis Team and the CAMHS, were within targets, however, although there were measures in place to mitigate the impact of waiting, there were significant delays for more specialist services, such as psychology and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) assessments. We agree that waiting times for assessment in specialist services are longer than we would want. The report notes that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder related waiting times are a national issue and that we are working with local ICB colleagues to address this.

You can read the full report on the CQC website.

This report follows another recent CQC report which rated LPT’s mental health crisis services and health-based places of safety as ‘Good’. More information about this inspection is available on our website.