Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust was established in April 2001, following the merger of Avon and Western Wiltshire Mental Health Trust with services in Swindon and South Wiltshire. The Avon and Western Wiltshire Mental Health Trust was formed by the renaming on 1 April 1999 of the Bath Mental Health Care NHS Trust, which had originally been formed on 1 November 1991. In 2008, the Care Quality Commission rated mental health services run by the trust as weak overall, along with ten other mental health trusts nationally. A 2012 CQC routine review found that the trust failed in four out of five inspection areas, and had insufficient experienced staff to meet needs. In 2013, the CQC identified the trust as one of eight mental health trusts with units that had dangerous staffing levels. In 2014, following an inspection, the CQC issued four warning notices to the trust requiring urgent action. Following a 2012 NHS South of England review of the trust that concluded that "there is an urgent need to change the culture and leadership from one of central control to one in which all staff are positively engaged and involved in determining and delivering safe, high quality care", the trust appointed a new chairman and chief executive. The trust was ordered to make urgent improvements to the safety of some of its services by the CQC in September 2014, after they found widespread inadequate staffing at inpatient units and a failure to investigate and learn from patient safety incidents. Hayley Richards is retiring as chief executive in May 2019, and will be replaced by Dominic Hardisty, previously Chief Operating Officer and Deputy Chief Executive at Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust. Prior to the arrival of Hardisty, Simon Truelove, the trust's Director of Finance, will act as the interim CEO.
Bristol Mental Health
In April 2013, the new Bristol Clinical Commissioning Group announced that following complaints from staff and patients in Bristol, it would re-procure adult out-patients mental health services in Bristol from autumn 2014, enabling alternative providers to bid to operate the service which was contributing about £40 million to AWP's income. A partnership of AWP, Second Step, Missing Link and seven voluntary sector organisations, called Bristol Mental Health, was awarded the contract. Different organisations will be responsible for each of six areas of the service. Bristol Mental Health commenced operation in October 2014.
Children's community services
The trust in conjunction with other partners won a contract to provide children's community services in Bristol and South Gloucestershire in October 2015, after North Bristol NHS Trust announced it would give up the contract. The service is provided by the Community Children's Health Partnership, which is a partnership between Sirona Care & Health, Bristol Community Health, Barnardo's and AWP.
