Pebble Lodge becomes national centre of excellence for children and adolescent mental health services

Dorset is now home to one of the leading inpatient mental health services for young people in the country, with similar organisations far and wide turning to us to help improve their standards of care.

The Dorset Children and Adolescent Mental Health Team (CAMHS), based at Pebble Lodge in Bournemouth and run by Dorset HealthCare, has been awarded QNIC accreditation – which means they are providing the highest level of care possible for its young service users.

QNIC stands for Quality Network for Inpatient CAMHS, and is run by The Royal College of Psychiatry, which sees peers across the country carry out rigorous inspections of mental health services in England.

They evaluate everything from cleanliness, care and environment to facilities, young people’s rights, clinical governance, staffing and training.

The achievement is even more impressive as out of 30 trusts inspected across the country last year, only four passed, with Pebble Lodge becoming the first to achieve the accreditation at the first attempt.

Naomi Jenkins is Ward Manager at Pebble Lodge. She said: “We are delighted to become a centre of excellence for CAMHS. This has been a real team effort and is a shining example of the high standards that can be achieved through hard work, commitment and dedication.

“Not many people realise we treat young people aged 12-18 for everything from anxiety, depression and self-harm to psychosis, bi-polar, severe mental illness and emotional difficulties, and this is all done under one roof – we even have our own school so young people don’t miss out on their education.

“We receive a high number of admissions each year, and also treat youngsters from out of the county, so it is great to know that our hard work has been recognised,” she added.

This welcome news also comes as the independent regulator of all health and social care services in England, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), rated adult mental health services at Dorset HealthCare as outstanding in their latest report.

Chief Operating Officer at Dorset HealthCare, Eugine Yafele, said: “The latest findings by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in the State of Care Report reflect some of the variation in quality that exists across our services. We are absolutely delighted that our acute inpatient services are rated as outstanding.

“This reflects the hard work and dedication of our staff and our determination as a Trust to provide high quality care, however we also acknowledge that there is still much room for further improvement across all of our services.”