STAFF at a private hospital were caught on camera intimidating a patient during an inspection by health watchdogs.

Cygnet Hospital in Boxted Road, Colchester, is still rated inadequate following a visit by Care Quality Commissioner (CQC) inspectors in November.

The facility cares for people with mental health problems and severe learning difficulties and a report says people working there intimidated a patient prior to restraining them and failed to follow their management plans.

Medication was also found not to be administered under the correct legal authority with some consent forms inadequately filled in.

Other findings included that ligature risk assessments were not thoroughly completed and some staff alarms did not work.

Inspectors did find improvements in leadership and staffing levels while the vast majority of patients said they were treated well.

The hospital fell from requires improvement to inadequate after an inspection in April.

As well as being inadequate overall, they also have that rating in the well-led and safety categories.

The hospital requires improvement in the areas titled effective, caring and responsive.A

A spokesman for Cygnet Health Care said: “While we acknowledge the CQC’s report and remain committed to improving our service, we are very encouraged by the report findings regarding: improvements around our leadership in the last 12 months and since our last April 2019 inspection, the ability to fully meet patient needs through increased staffing, and patients across all wards saying staff treat them well and behave kindly.

“CQC has recognised we have implemented improvements, strengthened our leadership and established a more robust management and governance structure to share learning.

“Our acute ward for adults and our psychiatric intensive care unit are now rated as ‘good’ for being effective, caring and responsive.

“The CQC observed that staff understood the individual needs of patients and communicated with them effectively.

“We are not complacent and take very seriously the provision of high quality care for our patients and we will continue to work together with the CQC and our partners to ensure all recommendations are fully implemented and improvements continue to be made.”