Washwood Heath Centre in Saltley, Birmingham is a Urgent care centre specialising in the provision of services relating to services for everyone and treatment of disease, disorder or injury. The last inspection date here was 9th January 2019
Washwood Heath Centre is managed by Virgin Care Vertis LLP who are also responsible for 1 other location
Contact Details:
Address:
Washwood Heath Centre Clodeshall Road Saltley Birmingham B8 3SN United Kingdom
This service is rated as Good overall. (Previous inspection March 2018 – Good)
The key questions are rated as:
Are services safe? – Good
Are services effective? – Good
Are services caring? – Good
Are services responsive? – Good
Are services well-led? – Good
We previously carried out a comprehensive inspection at Washwood Heath Centre on 1 March 2018. The overall rating for the service was good with a requires improvement rating for the provision of effective services. The full comprehensive report for the March 2018 inspection can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Washwood Heath Centre on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
This inspection was an announced focused inspection carried out on 18 December 2018. It was undertaken to confirm that the service had carried out their plan to meet the legal requirements in relation to the breaches in regulations that we identified in our previous inspection on 1 March 2018. This report covers our findings in relation to those requirements and also additional improvements made since our last inspection.
Our key findings are as follows:
We found that the provider had taken effective action to address the issues raised in our previous inspection report.
A comprehensive clinical audit programme had been developed and was underway to support service improvement and learning.
The implementation of additional staffing had helped improve waiting times for patients attending the service.
The processes for checking that emergency medicines and equipment was present and in date had been improved. We found records for monitoring this were complete.
Patient information was available in languages alternative to English for common complaints seen at the service. This included the main local language spoken in the community.
Staff advised that complaints had been reviewed for themes or trends however, there were relatively few and no specific themes identified.
The areas where the provider should make improvements are:
Review differences in waiting times between the providers two services to identify potential reasons for this and any further action that could be taken to improve.
We first inspected Washwood Heath Centre on 14 November 2016 as part of our comprehensive inspection programme. The overall rating for the service was requires improvement. The full report from the November 2016 inspection can be found by selecting the 'all reports' link for Washwood Heath Centre on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
This inspection was an announced comprehensive inspection, carried out on 1 March 2018 to confirm that the practice had carried out their plan to meet the legal requirements in relation to the breaches in regulations we identified in our previous inspection on 14 November 2016. This report covers our findings in relation to those requirements and also additional improvements made since our last inspection.
At this inspection we found:
The provider had made significant improvements to address the breaches and improve the service delivered since our previous inspection in November 2016. This had focused on improving engagement and support for staff.
The service had clear systems to keep people safe. This including arrangements to safeguard children and vulnerable adults from abuse, recruitment processes, infection control and medicines.
The provider regularly reviewed staffing and was taking action to adjust this in order to meet changes in service demand.
The service had reviewed processes for managing patients who might be in need of urgent attention. Reception staff were aware of these processes and had received training to support the identification and escalation of any concerns.
Risks were generally well managed although we identified processes for monitoring emergency medicines and equipment that were not consistently followed.
The service had processes for reporting, investigating, acting on and learning from safety incidents to minimise the risks of reoccurrence and improve processes. Learning was shared with all staff including locum staff.
The service had systems for supporting staff to keep up to date with best practice guidance.
Staff received opportunities for learning and development and received regular supervision.
There was limited evidence of clinical improvement activity such as clinical audit.
Staff involved and treated people with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
The service had a high proportion of patients whose first language was not English. Interpretation and translation services were available however, the availability of patient information in alternative languages and formats was limited.
The provider worked with commissioners to provide services to meet the needs of the local population and reduced demand on other services such as accident and emergency departments.
The provider was meeting contractual obligations for seeing patients within four hours.
Information about how to complain was available and easy to understand. Information from complaints was used to support improvements in the quality of care.
There were clear leadership and governance arrangements in place. Staff were aware of the vision and values of the organisation.
The service proactively sought feedback from staff and patients which it acted on.
There was a focus on continuous learning and improvement within the organisation.
The areas where the provider must make improvements as they are in breach of regulations are:
Establish effective systems and processes to ensure good governance in accordance with the fundamental standards of care.
The areas where the provider should make improvements are:
Review processes for checking emergency equipment.
Review access to information in languages and formats relevant to the local population.
Consider reviewing complaints to identify any themes or trends.
Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Washwood Heath Centre on 14 November 2016. Overall the service is rated as requires improvement.
Our key findings across all the areas we inspected were as follows:
We observed the premises to be visibly clean and tidy and there was a named infection control lead for staff to report infection control concerns and seek best practice advice and guidance from.
There was an open and transparent approach to safety and a system in place for recording, reporting and acting on significant events. However, the learning from these was not shared with all staff.
Most risks to patients were assessed and well managed. A system was in place to share patient safety and medicine alerts with members of staff but these were not shared effectively with regular locum staff. The service did not have access to shared databases so that patient records could be checked or information shared in a timely way to promote effective care and treatment. If required, staff phoned through to the patients’ own GP or other health services and information was sent or received by secure methods such as by fax.
Patients’ care needs were assessed and care delivered on a priority basis through a red alert triage system. There were good facilities and the service was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
The service monitored changes in relevant evidence based guidance and standards including National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) best service guidelines
Staff had the relevant skills to assess patients’ needs and had access to appropriate training. However, the system in place to assess staff competence and provide assurance that high standards were maintained was not fully effective.
Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.
Information about services and how to complain was available and easy to understand. Improvements were made to the quality of care as a result of complaints and concerns.
The service worked proactively with other organisations and providers to develop services to reduce hospital admission where appropriate and improve the patient experience.
There was a clear leadership structure and staff felt supported by management. The service proactively sought feedback from staff and patients, which it acted on. However, there was scope to strengthen the patient survey to include targeted questions about the patient experience.
The provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the duty of candour.
The areas where the provider must make improvement are:
Establish an effective system to share key learning and patient safety information with long term locum staff following significant events and patient safety and medicines alerts.
Ensure that systems used for patient feedback gather information about the quality of patient's experience so that the delivery of the service can be monitored and relevant improvement completed.
Ensure there is an appropriate induction process for any long term locum staff so that they receive relevant information and regular supervision in order to work effectively with patients.
Establish an effective process for the supervision of the advanced nurse practitioners to ensure their competence is maintained in order to achieve the best outcomes for patients.
The areas where the provider should make improvements are:
Review the risks in relation to the waiting area where staff have limited visibility of patients who could deteriorate whilst waiting to be seen.
Review access to information in alternative languages to suit the needs of the local population. This should include information on accessing the complaints process.
The urgent care centre is a nurse lead service. (This means all consultation are held with a nurse practitioner. During our visit, we spoke with the manager, four staff and three people using the service. Three people using the service gave consent so we could follow them through their treatment. We saw staff giving advice and support to people during their consultation. One person told us, “I am happy with the treatment I have, staff are nice and, friendly’’. Another person told us, “I am not registered with a GP so I come here, I get the same treatment as I would have if I had a GP, probably better’’.
The provider had effective infection control procedures in place. This meant the risk of infection for people using the service was minimised.
Staff received a range of training so that they had up to date knowledge and skills in order to support people receiving a service.
The provider took steps to assess and monitor the quality of the service provided and the information was used to improve the service if required.
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