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Archived: Nestor Primecare Services Limited t/a Primecare Primary Care Mid-Essex Also known as North Chelmsford NHS Healthcare Centre

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

North Chelmsford NHS Healthcare Centre, 2 White Hart Lane, Springfield, Chelmsford, Essex, CM2 5PA 0845 641 3227

Provided and run by:
Nestor Primecare Services Limited

Latest inspection summary

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Background to this inspection

Updated 31 March 2015

Nestor Primecare Services Limited t/a Primecare Primary Care Mid Essex held the contract to provide NHS out-of-hours services on behalf of Mid Essex Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). The service covers the geographical area of Mid Essex including Chelmsford, Maldon and Braintree and provides services to a population of approximately 380,000 people.

The service covers GP surgery out-of-hours during evenings, weekends and bank/ public holidays. When a patient's telephone call is directed to the NHS 111 service via their own GP surgery when it is closed, the NHS 111 service may refer patients to Primecare Primary Care Mid-Essex who will decide on the most appropriate care for patients who use the service based on their symptoms. The service provides advice for home treatment, arranging for patients to be seen by a health care professional at a local Primary Care Centre or if clinically appropriate, arranging for a health care professional to visit patients at their homes.

The out-of-hours service relocated to Broomfield Hospital in December 2014. The out-of-hours Primary Care Centre is operated from the orthopaedic outpatient’s clinic at Broomfield Hospital. The service provided GP consultations by appointment at the hospital based Primary Care Centre. Home visits were also available for those patients who were assessed as not being fit enough to travel to the Primary Care Centre for a consultation. District nursing services were provided from 10.30pm to 8am each night.

Overall inspection

Good

Updated 31 March 2015

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We conducted a comprehensive announced inspection on 18 February 2015 under the new approach.

Our key findings were as follows:

  • The out-of-hours service provided safe care and treatment. Primecare Primary Care was proactive in identifying and minimising risks to patients who used the out-of-hours services. Staff were robustly recruited, trained and supervised to deliver safe care and treatment.
  • The out-of-hours service was responsive to the needs of patients and operated a flexible system for telephone and face-to-face consultations and home visits according to patient’s needs.
  • The out-of-hours service had robust and consistent procedures in place for monitoring the effectiveness of the delivery of patient care and treatment. The performance of the service was monitored and actions taken to improve the delivery of service where required.
  • The out-of-hours service was well managed with systems in place to continually improve services.

However, there was one area of practice where the provider needed to make improvements.

The provider should:

  • Ensure that policies, procedures and risk assessments are updated where required to reflect the relocation of the service to its current location at Broomfield Hospital.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice