- Independent mental health service
St Andrews Healthcare Northampton
We have taken urgent enforcement action by imposing a condition on St Andrew's Healthcare's registration on 14 July 2025 to keep service users safe by restricting new admissions at St Andrew's Healthcare Northampton. We have also imposed a number of conditions on St Andrew's Healthcare registration on 10 November 2025 to require the provider to make improvements in the safety and quality of care provided relating to; staffing, ward environments, blanket restrictions, risk management, observations, incident management, governance and systems and processes.
Report from 21 September 2025 assessment
Contents
Ratings
Our view of the service
We assessed St Andrews Hospital Northampton between 10 October 2025 and 2025 5 November on site, and until 10 December (off site).
We assessed St Andrews Hospital Northampton between 10 October and 05 November (2025) onsite, and concluded our assessment on 10 December 2025 offsite.
This inspection was an unannounced focused inspection undertaken as a follow up to the previous inspections in July and August 2025, with 3 assessment service groups (forensic in-patient or secure wards, wards for older people with mental health problems and services for people with acquired brain injury) reviewed. The CQC had taken urgent action to impose a condition on the provider’s registration, to restrict new admissions across the entire site. We needed to assess if these restrictions remained fair and proportionate, and whether all were still needed to keep patients safe.
St Andrew’s Healthcare Northampton is part of St Andrew’s Healthcare, which is a registered charity. The charity provides specialist mental healthcare for patients who may have complex presentations, with challenging mental health needs. During our inspection we visited wards across the medium and low secure wards, to include learning disability / autism wards (LDA); wards for older people with mental health problems and wards for people with acquired brain injury.
During our inspection, we visited the following wards as part of the assessment:
- Cherry ward: a specialist older adult service for females with complex dementia and / or progressive neurological conditions, including Huntington's disease, who present with cognitive deficits (12 beds).
- Redwood ward: a specialist older adult service for males with complex dementia and / or progressive neurological conditions, who present with cognitive deficits (12 beds).
- Fairbairn ward: a medium secure service for deaf men with 17 beds
- Robinson ward: A secure admission ward for adult males with a mental health diagnosis with 17 beds
- Mackaness Ward: A secure admission ward for adult males with a mental health diagnosis with 15 beds
- Cranford Ward: a medium secure service for older men aged over 55 years old with 17 beds
- Meadow ward: A medium secure admission, stabilisation and treatment service for men with a forensic history and distressed behaviour with 10 beds
- Sycamore ward: A medium secure admission, stabilisation and treatment service for men with a forensic history and distressed behaviour with 10 beds
- Marsh ward: A specialist medium secure admission, stabilisation and treatment service for men with a forensic history with distressed behaviour
- Oak ward: a recovery-orientated medium secure service for women aged over 18 with 10 beds
- Fern ward: A stabilisation and treatment service for men who may also have a forensic history with distressed behaviour with 10 beds
- Allitsen ward: a long stay rehabilitation ward for males with 11 beds
- Tavener ward: a long stay rehabilitation ward for males with 11 beds
- Tallis ward: an admission, assessment and rehabilitation ward for males with 11 beds
- Elgar ward: an admission, assessment and rehabilitation ward for females with 12 beds
- Walton ward: an admission, assessment and rehabilitation ward for males living with Huntington’s disease with 14 beds
During this assessment we assessed the following service groups: Forensic inpatient or secure wards; wards for older people with mental health problems and services for people with acquired brain injury. We assessed 14 quality statements under 3 key questions: safe, caring and well led.
We have assessed the service against ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ guidance to make judgements about whether the provider guaranteed people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted.
The overall service rating was Inadequate
In the Forensic in-patient or secure wards (including LD/A), we found breaches of regulations in relation to dignity and respect (regulation 10), safe care and treatment (regulation 12); safeguarding (regulation 13); governance (regulation 17) and staffing (regulation 18). in wards for older people with mental health problems we identified breaches in relation to safe care and treatment (regulation 12); safeguarding (regulation 13); governance (regulation 17) and staffing (regulation 18). in services for people with acquired brain injury we identified breaches in relation to person centred care (regulation 9), dignity and respect (regulation 10), safeguarding (regulation 13), good governance (regulation 17) and staffing (regulation 18).
We have asked the provider for an action plan in response to the concerns found at this assessment.”
This service remains in special measures. The purpose of special measures is to ensure that services providing inadequate care make significant improvements. Special measures provide a framework within which we user our enforcement powers in response to inadequate care and provide a timeframe within which providers must improve the quality of the care they provide.
In instances where CQC has begun a process of regulatory action, we may publish this information on our website after any representations and/or appeals have been concluded, if the action has been taken forward.