Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust: Pay & CQC Rating

What LYPFT actually runs

Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (provider code RGD) is the main provider of specialist mental health and learning disability services in Leeds, and separately delivers specialist inpatient child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) and a low secure forensic service in York and Leeds that serve a wider regional population across West Yorkshire, Humber and North Yorkshire, alongside a small number of highly specialised services reaching across the North of England. It employs over 3,000 staff, plus around 600 regular bank staff and roughly 100 volunteers, delivering 39 distinct care services from 66 sites, with around 407 inpatient beds — though, as with most mental health trusts, the majority of care is delivered in the community rather than as an inpatient.

Its most recent major capital project is Red Kite View in Armley, Leeds — a purpose-built, roughly £20 million CYPMHS inpatient unit that opened in January 2022, comprising a 16-bed general adolescent ward and a 6-bed psychiatric intensive care unit, built specifically to reduce the distance young people had to travel (previously up to 130 miles) for inpatient mental health care. It's a joint venture with Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust (LCH) — notably, the same organisation LYPFT is due to formally acquire from 2027 (more on that below). Mill Lodge in York is a 10-bed specialist CAMHS inpatient unit for 13–18 year-olds that takes referrals regionally and, in some cases, nationally. The Newsam Centre at Seacroft Hospital in Leeds hosts the trust's Low Secure Forensic Service (37 beds across three wards for people under Part III of the Mental Health Act) as well as some of its long-stay and rehabilitation wards.

Mental health nursing progresses through exactly the same Agenda for Change bands as any other field of nursing — our nursing guide covers Band 5 through senior practice and leadership roles across all fields — and allied health professionals working in mental health, forensic and CAMHS settings are covered in our AHP guide.

CQC rating: a stale headline, a much more current warning

LYPFT's published overall Care Quality Commission rating is Good, from a comprehensive inspection carried out in July–August 2019 (CQC provider code RGD) — rated Requires Improvement for safe, and Good for effective, caring, responsive and well-led at that time. That headline figure has not been through a fresh trust-wide comprehensive re-inspection since, and it materially understates what's happened at individual-service level far more recently.

It isn't uniformly negative, either: an inspection of young people's inpatient mental health care (October 2025) was rated Good, and perinatal mental health services (September 2024) were also rated Good overall. Read the CQC's own current provider page for RGD for the full, up-to-date breakdown by service before forming a view based on any single figure — trust-wide or otherwise.

NHS Staff Survey: a below-median, mid-table result

In the 2025 NHS Staff Survey, LYPFT had 1,504 completed questionnaires at a 45% response rate — below the 52% median response rate for its 48-organisation benchmark group of Mental Health & Learning Disability and Mental Health, Learning Disability & Community trusts (NHS Staff Surveys Coordination Centre benchmark report, provider RGD). Results sat close to average overall, tilted slightly negative on most measures.

The specific numbers: "We are compassionate and inclusive" scored 7.54 (vs 7.61 average), "We are recognised and rewarded" 6.25 (vs 6.37), "We each have a voice that counts" 6.89 (level with the 6.89 average), "We are safe and healthy" 6.34 (level with the 6.34 average), "We are always learning" 5.76 (vs 5.83), "We work flexibly" 7.05 (vs 6.84 — a genuine above-average bright spot), "We are a team" 7.02 (vs 7.17) and Morale 6.05 (vs 6.12). Overall: a realistic, close-to-average result — not a red flag on its own, but worth reading alongside the more concerning 2026 CQC findings above rather than in isolation.

A planned 2027 merger with Leeds Community Healthcare

LYPFT and the neighbouring Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust (LCH) have had a joint Strategic Outline Case for integration approved by both trust boards, with LCH to be brought into LYPFT by acquisition — meaning LYPFT would be the surviving legal organisation. NHS England has approved the two trusts to develop a Full Business Case, which requires further national approval before the integration can complete, with a target date of 1 April 2027. Until that happens, LYPFT and LCH remain two entirely separate legal employers with separate CQC ratings, separate staff survey results and (in principle) separate terms — so if you're applying for a role that sits within a joint service like Red Kite View, check specifically which of the two trusts the actual employment contract is with, since it can differ from which organisation's name is most visible on the ward or unit itself.

Red Kite View, Mill Lodge and specialist services

Beyond core adult and older adult mental health services, LYPFT runs several distinct specialist services:

• Red Kite View — a purpose-built CYPMHS inpatient unit (16-bed general adolescent ward plus a 6-bed PICU) opened in 2022, run jointly with Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust.
• Mill Lodge — a 10-bed specialist CAMHS inpatient unit in York for 13–18 year-olds, taking regional and, in some cases, national referrals.
• Newsam Centre Low Secure Forensic Service — 37 beds across three wards (an 11-bed women's ward, a 12-bed male assessment and treatment unit, and a 14-bed treatment and recovery unit) for people under Part III of the Mental Health Act.
• Perinatal mental health services — rated Good overall at a September 2024 inspection, supporting women during pregnancy and the first postnatal year.
• Adult neurodiversity services — delivered across Leeds, alongside some specialist services reaching across West Yorkshire, Humber and North Yorkshire.

Pay, banding and no HCAS

Pay at LYPFT runs on the same national Agenda for Change pay bands as any other NHS trust — Band 2 through Band 9, plus medical and dental pay scales for psychiatrists and other doctors. Leeds and York sit entirely outside every High Cost Area Supplement zone, so no location-based percentage uplift applies to any LYPFT role. Use the NHS Pay Calculator with your specific band and pay point selected to see the actual national pay figure that applies here, and the Unsocial Hours Calculator for what a 24/7 inpatient or PICU rota genuinely adds on top of band pay.

LYPFT vs South London and Maudsley

LYPFT isn't the only trust on this site whose long-held "Good" CQC headline has been complicated by a more recent, more concerning finding — it's worth comparing it against South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM), already covered in depth here.

Both trusts illustrate the same broader point worth taking from this comparison: a trust's headline CQC rating can genuinely lag well behind its current, service-level reality, in either direction. Read the specific, dated report for the exact service and location you're applying to, on the CQC's own site, rather than relying on a single trust-wide word — and the NHS Trust Comparison Tool below can help you line up both trusts, and others, against your own priorities.

Why someone might specifically want to join

Pulling together everything above, a few genuine, verifiable reasons someone might specifically target LYPFT over another comparable trust — alongside honest awareness of its current regulatory position:

• A recently modernised CAMHS estate — Red Kite View is a genuinely new, purpose-built facility that solved a real, well-documented problem (young people travelling long distances for inpatient care).
• Regional and national referral experience — Mill Lodge and the trust's other specialist services give staff exposure to referrals from well beyond Leeds and York alone.
• A trust actively responding to a recent regulatory finding — the reported environmental remediation and governance strengthening since the 2026 warning notice, and the trust's own request for CQC re-inspection, are concrete, checkable actions rather than vague reassurance.
• Involvement in a live organisational integration — for staff who find that kind of change interesting rather than unsettling, the run-up to the planned 2027 acquisition of Leeds Community Healthcare is a genuinely active period of system change to be part of.

Equally, anyone considering a role specifically in acute adult wards, older people's wards or long-stay/rehabilitation services should weigh the 2026 CQC findings seriously and ask directly, at interview or via current staff, what's changed on the ground since the warning notice was issued.

Tools for working out your own numbers

Job title and trust name alone won't tell you what a specific LYPFT role is actually worth to you, or how it stacks up against another trust's offer — these three tools do that with your own numbers:

Your employer, not just your role

Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust is your legal employer if you work here today, which is what continuous service and any redundancy pay calculation is based on — worth confirming clearly at offer stage given the trust's planned 2027 acquisition of Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust, and being clear about which of the two trusts a joint-venture role like Red Kite View actually employs you through. See our explainer on NHS structure for the broader picture of how trusts, ICBs and NHS England fit together.

Related guides

Frequently asked questions