In 2011 the company was warned by the Care Quality Commission about staffing levels at Cygnet Wing Blackheath. Improvements were still required at the CQC inspection in April 2014. In 2013 the CQC issued a warning in respect of Cygnet Hospital Bierley because the service was failing to ensure that appropriate records were kept. Cygnet was the subject of a BBC investigation that found that staff had been taunting, provoking and scaring vulnerable people. Cygnet Acer Clinic in Chesterfield was placed in special measures in September 2019 and admissions to Cygnet Acer Clinic were suspended. At that point Newbus Grange hospital in Darlington, Cygnet Hospital Ealing, Cygnet Hospital Wyke in Bradford, Cygnet Hospital Coventry and Cygnet Hospital Colchester were also in special measures. After its eighth site, Cygnet Acer Clinic in Derbyshire, was rated "inadequate" in just over a year the company accused the CQC of publishing an "inaccurate picture". The CQC found three-quarters of nursing staff at the Clinic, which provides treatment for 28 female patients with personality disorders and who self-harm, were unqualified, and suspended admissions. After an assessment of its leadership CQC inspectors said they could not find a “clear line of accountability” across the provider’s 140 locations. They said most of the company's services were rated as “good” and some as “outstanding”. They found that checks to make sure the directors and board members were ‘fit and proper’ “had not been carried out” and there was no evidence of references having been taken up during recruitment or that insolvency and bankruptcy searches were done. Cygnet commissioned a corporate governance review by an independent person and took action to make improvements.
Adolescent care
In 2017 the CQC raised concerns about the safety and quality of the firm's hospitals in Sheffield and Woking. It ordered admissions to be suspended at Knole Ward at the Cygnet Hospital at Godden Green, near Sevenoaks, which operates a tier 4 child and adolescent mental health service because of concerns about the use of seclusion and segregation. The company announced in November 2017 that it would no longer provide children and adolescents’ mental health services in its regional psychiatric intensive care unit at Cygnet Hospital Woking. In December 2017, Cygnet Health Care was accused of failing vulnerable young patients Three warning notices and fixed penalty notices for failing to make "required notifications" of patient safety incidents were issued by the CQC after an "urgent" inspection in November 2017. The Cygnet Hospital Godden Green was restricted to eight admissions. It was said that staff were "often reliant on police intervention" to manage incidents in the hospital, and were not always competent and skilled. It was rated good after an inspection in February 2018. Plans to open 12 CAMHS eating disorder beds at Godden Green in 2019 were paused after three incidents at the hospital. The CQC issued two warning notices around safe care and treatment, and good governance. In July 2019 the CQC imposed two requirement notices – relating to safe medicines management and having a permanent registered manager - in place on the Godden Green hospital but lifted the restriction on the number of admissions.
Newbus Grange
A patient was found with "unexplained injuries", patients had chances to kill themselves and staff were asleep on duty, men with autism, learning disabilities and complex needs were restrained by staff through "inappropriate techniques" at Cygnet Newbus Grange hospital, in Darlington. That was the sixth time in 2019 that the CQC found a mental health unit that Cygnet runs inadequate. Sean McNulty, who worked at Newbus Grange, was imprisoned for abuse and ill-treatment of residents. Judge Peter Armstrong described McNulty as a, "sadistic bully", McNulty was found in CCTV footage punching, kicking or slapping one patient 15 times. This was one of four inpatient units which were previously operated by the Danshell Group and acquired by the company in 2018. All four were condemned by the CQC.
