Priory Hospital Enfield

Updated 16 February 2026

Priory Hospital Enfield is provided by Partnerships in Care Limited. The service provides acute and forensic mental health inpatient care. The service is a 53 bedded unit, with 41 forensic beds across 3 wards and 1 acute ward with 12 beds. Byron Ward is a low secure unit and Coleridge Ward and Keats Ward are medium secure. Blake Ward is an acute mental health ward for women.

Priory Hospital Enfield was last inspected by the CQC in September 2021. The hospital was rated Good overall. The acute ward was rated Requires Improvement for Responsive. The forensic service received an overall rating of requires improvement.

Following this inspection, the overall rating for the hospital location remains Good.

Acute wards have been rated Good in all domains. The forensic wards were rated Good in Safe, Effective, Caring and Response and rated Requires Improvement in Well-Led.

We found several areas of good practice. There had been significant recruitment of staff within the hospital, with reduced use of agency staff. Overall, we found an improvement in monitoring of rapid tranquilisation including staff training and audits. We found evidence of good patient involvement in their ward rounds. Staff described good teamwork on the wards and there were structured and recorded meetings on the wards. Patients told us staff were kind and treated them well. We found an improvement in staff ensuring patients were informed of their rights and a patient representative attended clinical governance meetings at the hospital. Patients could access a range of interventions and activities in line with national guidance.

Prior to the inspection we received several anonymous whistleblowing concerns about the hospital regarding restrictive practices, overmedication, physical health monitoring, a closed culture, discrimination in recruitment, and a punitive approach to complex behavioural issues. Overall, we did not find evidence of these concerns.

We did identify some areas for improvement across the wards. In the forensic wards, although leaders understood what the local risks were and had quality assurance measures in place, at the time of the inspection, oversight was not sufficient to find and address errors in staff documentation of seclusion, medicines administration, and rapid tranquilisation. Observation records at night did not always have the level of detail recommended in best practice. Across the service it was identified that areas of improvement were care plans and documentation and the provider was in the process of training staff in these areas.

Updated 18 August 2025

We carried out a comprehensive assessment of the Priory Hospital Enfield Acute ward on 22nd October 2025.

The acute ward was for female patients who were aged 18+ who required inpatient care for a wide range of mental health conditions.

Priory Hospital Enfield was last inspected by the CQC in September 2021. The hospital was rated good overall. The Acute ward was rated requires improvement for responsive. There were three requirement notices issued at the previous inspection.

At this assessment we rated the ward as good. Previous breaches have now been addressed, and the service is now compliant with regulations in these areas.

We spoke with 12 members of staff, 5 patients and 2 carers. We also reviewed the care and treatment records of 4 patients.

We identified several areas of good practice during this inspection. Staff had a good understanding of what incidents to report and the process for doing so. Staff told us they avoided using physical restraint by using de-escalation techniques. All staff were up to date with their yearly appraisals. Patients could access a range of interventions and activities in line with national guidance. Patients told us staff were kind and treated them well. All staff told us they felt respected, supported and valued by their colleagues and managers.

Updated 18 August 2025

Priory Hospital Enfield is provided by Partnerships in Care Limited. There are three forensic mental health wards for male inpatients. Byron Ward is a low secure unit and Coleridge and Keats wards are medium secure. The forensic service was last inspected in September 2021 and received an overall rating of requires improvement.

The current inspection took place on 15 – 17 September 2025 with 30 minutes notice. We spoke with 10 patients across the wards and conducted a tour of each ward. We spoke with 26 staff members including the previous and current hospital directors, medical director, clinical director, physical health lead, ward managers, registered and non-registered nurses, a consultant psychiatrist, occupational therapists and assistants, psychologists, activities coordinator, and a social worker. We had the opportunity to attend ward rounds on 3 wards, and a referral meeting for the hospital. We reviewed 16 care records of patients on the wards. The inspection included a member of the medicine’s optimisation team visiting each ward and reviewing the medicines administration and care records for 11 people. They reviewed the use of medicines to manage anxiety and/or agitation, administration records against relevant mental health act consent to treatment document and reviewed policies and procedures. Following the inspection we spoke with 7 carers/relatives of patients on the ward.

Prior to the inspection we received several anonymous whistleblowing concerns about the hospital regarding restrictive practices, overmedication, physical health monitoring, a closed culture, discrimination in recruitment, and a punitive approach to complex behavioural issues. Overall, we did not find evidence of these concerns. However, we did note that there were some gaps in senior oversight in specific areas that required improvement. These related to clear seclusion records and medicine administration records.

Overall, we have rated the service as Good. We found several areas of good practice. There had been significant recruitment of staff within the hospital, with few vacant posts and reduced use of agency staff. Overall, we found an improvement in monitoring of rapid tranquilisation including staff training and audits. We found evidence of good patient involvement in their ward rounds.

There was effective use of the National Early Warning Scores. A physical health nurse for the hospital started in January 2025 and was creating a competency document for the nursing team. Staff described good teamwork on the wards and there were daily multi-disciplinary team meetings and structured handover records used on each ward. We found an improvement in staff ensuring patients were informed of their rights and a patient representative attended clinical governance meetings at the hospital.

We also identified some areas for improvement. We found some gaps in records of patients in seclusion including the reason for seclusion, rationale, doctors’ comments and initial seclusion care plans. There were some environmental issues with the seclusion room that did not uphold the privacy and dignity of patients as well as it could have. We found 2 mattresses appeared to be unclean on Coleridge Ward, and audits of mattress cleanliness indicated that this was an area for improvement.

Records did not always clearly show why ‘when required’ (PRN) medicines were used on the wards to manage anxiety or agitation or if they worked. Some high-risk medicines were not included in care plans or risk assessments and records did not always show that high-dose antipsychotic treatment was being reviewed.

Patients provided mixed feedback. Whilst some were very positive, others expressed concerns about the length of time between ward rounds, delays in accessing psychology, few activities at weekends, opportunities for fresh air and delays in getting leave. There was mixed evidence of patient involvement in care plans with better recording of this on Keats Ward. Observation records at night did not always have the level of detail recommended in best practice.

We found 1 breach of the regulations in relation to good governance in monitoring records of patients in seclusion, the environment within the seclusion room, and recording of the reason for use of ‘when required’ (PRN) medicines were used on the wards to manage anxiety or agitation or if they worked.