Kent and Medway Mental Health Trust told to improve health and safety

The safety of mental health patients in Kent has been put at risk after an NHS trust failed to carry out basic safety checks.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has issued an improvement notice to the Kent and Medway Mental Health Trust.

It found the trust, which cares for more than 50,000 patients each year, failed to carry our basic safety checks, such as fire drills.

It has been ordered to make improvements by 31 July.

The trust was investigated after it was late reporting a number of "serious incidents" affecting patients and staff, which are supposed to be reported within 15 days.

In 2014 one incident took 425 days to report to the HSE. Another - described as a dangerous occurrence - took 112 days.

A whistleblower has also provided documents to BBC South East Today, which show evacuation drills in the Homeopathic Hospital, in Tunbridge Wells, have not been carried out since 2003.

A trust spokeswoman said: "The safety and wellbeing of patients is our number one priority.

"We have a number of measures in place including staff training."

It's a trust that cares for more than 50,000 of us every year and employs more than 3,000 people - it's a big, complicated organisation.

But it has been in the news for other issues. Sending people out of the county because they didn't have enough beds and there's currently a case before the Nursing and Midwifery Council for poor care.

The improvement notice said the trust "failed to conduct" its undertakings to ensure the health, safety and welfare of employees and patients.

Teresa Murray, a councillor on Medway Council who works closely with the trust, said she had not been told about the notice.

She said: "They've been through a rocky time in the last couple of years - they made cuts and they've had a lot of changes.

"I'm disappointed because this indicates that everything in the garden isn't rosy and there are still things that need improving."