Tessa Jowell Health Centre

Updated 18 July 2022

Tessa Jowell Health Centre is the base hub for the out of hours service for the South East London boroughs of Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham. The location is based at 72 East Dulwich Grove, London, SE22 8EY. The service has a satellite service in Lewisham at St John’s Medical Centre, 56-60 Loampit Hill, London SE13 7SX. The provider is SELDOC who have responsibility for two out of hours services in London, and they are a GP co-operative within this region who are directly contracted to provide out of hours care at two hubs, and home visiting services.

The Tessa Jowell Health Centre is the larger of the two locations and has four consulting rooms which are utilised by a variety of medical professionals, although a general practitioner is always on site. The home visiting service is based at this hub. The Lewisham location is open at weekends only, and has a single consulting room.

The service covers a large urban area, with large populations of both high and low deprivation. The populations of Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham include a large number of different nationalities and there are substantial populations of patients from ethnic minorities.

The service manages approximately 800 face to face consultations at the two hubs and 200 home visits per calendar month depending on the time of year. The service also provides overflow support to the local clinical assessment service (CAS).

The service is registered with the CQC to provide the regulated activities of Transport services, triage and medical advice provided remotely and Treatment of disease, disorder or injury.

During the inspection we utilised a number of methods to support our judgement of the services provided. For example, we interviewed staff, and reviewed documents relating to the service.

To get to the heart of patients’ experiences of care and treatment, we always ask the following five questions:

• Is it safe?
• Is it effective?
• Is it caring?
• Is it responsive to people’s needs?
• Is it well-led?

These questions therefore formed the framework for the areas we looked at during the inspection.

Updated 18 July 2022

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Tessa Jowell Health Centre on Friday 10 and Friday 24 June 2022. This service had previously been inspected at its former location on 26 February 2020. The registered location of the service changed to Tessa Jowell Health Centre in April 2020. This is the first inspection of the service at its current location

This service is rated as Good overall.

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

At this inspection we found:

• The service had good systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. When they did happen, the service learned from them and improved their processes.
• The service routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided. It ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence- based guidelines.
• Staff involved and treated people with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
• Patients were able to access care and treatment from the service within an appropriate timescale for their needs.
• There was a strong focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels of the organisation.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP

Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care