Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust


Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust provides mental health services and other community based health services, primarily to the resident population of the Royal County of Berkshire, England, in the United Kingdom.
Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust was established as an NHS Trust on 1 April 2000 following the dissolution of two former NHS organisations on 31 March 2000, namely West Berkshire Priority Care NHS Trust and East Berkshire Learning Disability NHS Trust. Mental health services were also transferred from Heatherwood & Wexham Park NHS Trust. On 2 May 2007, Berkshire Healthcare NHS Trust was licensed as a foundation trust.

Services

Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust is a widely dispersed organisation with clinical services at several locations across the whole of the Royal County of Berkshire.
The majority of community mental health services are aligned with the six unitary authorities of Berkshire of Slough Borough Council; Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead; Bracknell Forest Borough Council; Wokingham Borough Council; Reading Borough Council and West Berkshire District Council. Each unitary authority area has its own Community Mental Health Team which provides teams of social service and health workers providing a joined up care and support to those in need of mental health support in those locations.
Inpatient services are provided in four locations across the Royal County of Berkshire: St Mark's Hospital in Maidenhead; Wexham Park Hospital in Slough, Berkshire; Heatherwood Hospital in Ascot, Berkshire; and Prospect Park Hospital in Reading, Berkshire.
Buckinghamshire, Berkshire East and Berkshire West primary care trusts produced a strategy document, called Care for the Future in August 2011 in which it was proposed to develop community services and reduce hospital provision in the area.
In December 2013 it was announced that the Charles Ward in St Mark's Hospital in Maidenhead would be moved to Prospect Park Hospital in January 2013.
The Trust spent £5,985,028 on private mental health placements in 2013/4, more than any other mental health trust.
In June 2015 the trust took over a GP practice run by Specialist Health Services in Priory Avenue, Reading, Berkshire which had been condemned by the Care Quality Commission as inadequate. It had been placed in Special measures but the CQC pronounced it much improved in October 2015.

Performance

It was named by the Health Service Journal as one of the top hundred NHS trusts to work for in 2015. At that time it had 3532 full time equivalent staff and a sickness absence rate of 4%. 71% of staff recommend it as a place for treatment and 62% recommended it as a place to work.