CQC rates Kent and Medway mental health trust leadership as requires improvement

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated leadership at Kent and Medway Mental Health NHS Trust as requires improvement following a well-led inspection in March, with the findings published on 8 October 2026, according to a CQC press release, the trust and Healthcare Management.

The trust said the regulator found it needed to make further improvements to its governance, assurance and risk management, and to address challenges in its organisational culture. That includes strengthening psychological safety and support for leaders and managers, and making sure patients, families and loved ones are more consistently involved in their care and in improving services.

What inspectors found

Serena Coleman, CQC’s deputy director of mental health in the south, said leaders and staff were committed to improving care, but that the regulator had significant concerns about management arrangements, which meant people were not always protected from the risk of poor care, Healthcare Management reported.

Inspectors found a culture in which some staff did not feel safe raising issues with management. CQC said 26 per cent of the staff who contacted the Freedom to Speak Up Guardian did so because they feared reprisal. Staff from ethnic minority groups and disabled staff experienced disparities in recruitment, disciplinary processes and workplace discrimination. CQC also found that families and carers were not always involved in a meaningful way.

The trust’s response

Sheila Stenson, the chief executive, said the trust had improved since CQC’s visit in March but that she was not complacent and knew more work was needed, according to Healthcare Management. She said the aim was a culture in which colleagues feel safe and supported to speak up, with patients and families involved more consistently in their care and in service improvement, and that the priority now was to embed those changes. She said CQC had recognised that the trust understands its challenges and has strengths in partnership working, innovation and research.

The trust’s announcement on 8 October followed a run of updates on its own performance. On 23 September it published an improvement plan focused on the changes with the greatest effect on care, safety and experience, and on 25 September its leaders said the trust was moving in the right direction after a challenging year.

None of CQC’s release, the trust’s statement or the published coverage gives the number of staff surveyed, the number of Freedom to Speak Up cases, a deadline for improvements or the cost of the improvement plan.

Our reading

Analysis by The Healthcare Daily.

• The findings link quality risk to management, governance and culture rather than to a single ward or service, which is what a well-led inspection is designed to test. Boards of other mental health trusts should expect speak-up data and workforce race and disability measures to be treated as evidence of leadership quality.
• Fear of reprisal among 26 per cent of speak-up contacts suggests concerns are bypassing line management. For commissioners, that weakens the reliability of routine internal reporting until the trust shows its culture work is taking effect.
• The gap between the March inspection and the October publication means the rating describes the trust seven months ago. Commissioners and partners should read it alongside the improvement plan the trust published in September and any later CQC reviews.