New research project: Quality of services at acute mental health wards at St Charles Hospital

Some of our staff and volunteers recently visited the four acute mental health wards at St Charles Hospital’s Mental Health Unit – Amazon Ward, Danube Ward, Ganges Ward, and Thames Ward.

These ‘Enter & View’ visits aimed to learn more about patient experiences of care, and their knowledge of mental health advocacy and the complaints system. The visits also aimed to evaluate whether services are culturally appropriate and sensitive for the ethnically diverse patients on the ward.

We were also keen to understand if the closure of the mental health inpatient ward at the Gordon Hospital in Westminster had affected patients receiving visitors, and if the activities offered were consistent across the wards.

All visits were announced Enter & View visits undertaken by trained and authorised staff and volunteers. This was part of our planned strategy to look at mental health services in general across Kensington and Chelsea.

Our findings – one overview report and four ward-specific reports – will be published as soon as possible. Our previous reports are available here.

What are Enter & View visits?

Healthwatch has a legal power to visit health and social care services. Trained Enter & View representatives are able to enter Health and Social Care premises, announced or unannounced, to observe and assess the nature and quality of services and obtain the views of the people using those services.

These visits are one of the tools Healthwatch can use to identify what is working well in particular services, what could be improved, and how good practice can be disseminated.

You can find out more about Enter & View visits here.