MEASURES put in place to bring the region’s mental health care service up to standard have been partially lifted after a review found improvements.

Watchdog NHS Improvement (NHSI) has confirmed that is has lifted some of the ‘regulatory undertakings’ placed on Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust over two years ago, following a number of serious failings.

It comes just months after the health trust were fined £2 million after admitted breaching health and safety regulations following the deaths of Connor Sparrowhawk and Teresa Colvin from New Forest.

Connor, 18, was found dead on July 4, 2013 after drowning in a bathtub at Slade House, Oxford.

Mrs Colvin, 45, of Lyndhurst, was found slumped beside a communal telephone at the Woodhaven mental health complex in Calmore in April 2012 and later died.

READ: Southern Health fined £2 million over patients deaths

Following the independent ‘Mazars’ report into the way the trust investigated the deaths of vulnerable patients, NHSI took action in 2016 requiring the trust to implement all recommendations in the report.

Now an independent audit of the trust’s progress found improvements in the way the trust investigates and reports patient deaths and involves family members in this process.

It also found a culture of increased openness and transparency.

The review was carried out by Niche Health, Social Care Consulting and Grant Thornton LLP during 2017 and concluded that the Trust had made significant improvements in all of the areas that were recommended in the Mazars report.

The Mazars report is the independent review carried out into the deaths of people with a learning disability or mental health problems in contact with Southern Heath. It was published in December 2015 and followed the high profile death of teenager Connor Sparrowhawk.

Dr Nick Broughton, Southern Health chief executive, said: “The audit findings published at the beginning of the year were very encouraging. NHSI’s actions today reinforce these findings and demonstrate that Southern Health is making genuine progress in changing the culture of the organisation to one that continuously improves and learns.

“Improving the quality of our services remains our top priority.”