STAFF at a mental health hospital are celebrating after it received the top rating of 'outstanding' following a return inspection by a national watchdog.

The Spinney on Everest Road, Atherton, was found to have improved in key areas by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in the six months since its last visit.

Inspectors praised the staff’s efforts in boosting care standards, stating that patients gave consistently positive feedback and caring, respectful interactions were observed across the hospital.

The report says: “We inspected The Spinney in August to check whether improvements had been made. We visited all the forensic wards and the psychiatric intensive care unit.

"We found areas of 'good' practice.

“As managers had made the improvements within six months, we re-rated the safe key question from 'requires improvement' to 'good'.

“This also led to an overall rating of 'outstanding' for The Spinney as the caring and responsive key questions were previously rated as 'outstanding' and all other key questions were rated as 'good'.”

Run by the Partnerships in Care group, The Spinney is an independent hospital which cares for people who are detained under the Mental Health Act.

The report noted that staff completed risk assessments of patients when they were admitted and updated them on an ongoing basis and that the wards were clean, well maintained and ligature risks were managed.

Inspectors added: “The wards displayed the actual staffing levels on each ward which matched or exceeded the expected staffing levels, and ward managers were empowered to take professional decisions about the staffing needs of the patients in their care."

Ailie Wallace, director at the hospital, said: “I am extremely proud that The Spinney has been marked as 'outstanding' by the CQC.

"This is a result of tireless work and efforts by our committed team of staff.

“I am pleased that our efforts to deliver safe, person-centred care have been recognised as 'outstanding', and the patient group here at The Spinney are very pleased with this outcome.

"We will continue to ensure we deliver high quality patient-focused care.”

However the report stated that patients on two of the wards were subject to restrictions on accessing their bedrooms at times during the day.