Archived: Royal Lancaster Infirmary Also known as Bay Urgent Care

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We inspected Royal Lancaster Infirmary Bay Urgent Care on the 28 October 2014.

We inspected this service as part of our new focused, comprehensive, inspection programme. This service location had not been inspected before. We looked at how well they provided services and found the overall rating for this service was good.

Our key findings were as follows:

•           We found there were comprehensive governance and risk management policies, procedures and measures in place.

•           Patients told us they were treated promptly, could make appointments with ease following a telephone consultation, they were involved in care and treatment decisions and that all staff treated them with dignity and respect.

•           The service took time to listen to the views of their patients and produced a monthly patient satisfaction report, collating views from patients who had used the service. Where actions where required these were implemented and used to improve the service.

•           The service was working with a local hospice to provide care during out of hours periods and participated in the ‘Better care together’ agenda with the local Clinical Commissioning Group.

•           The service supported the implementation and roll out of a Prime Minister’s Challenge Fund Pilot entitled Opening Doors – Aligning and Integrating Health and Care Services in Morecambe (Lancashire). Five practices in Morecambe offer an 8am to 8pm seven days a week service for 61,000 patients.

•           The service provided staff with opportunities to express their views and set up the staff Morale -0 –meter surveys.

However, there were also areas of practice where the provider needs to make improvements. 

In addition the provider should:

• The provider had not ensured the serial numbers of all prescription pads both hand written and electronic, at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary location were recorded.

• Staff were overdue their annual appraisals.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP

Chief Inspector of General Practice