• Community
  • Community healthcare service

Brook Euston

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

92-94 Chalton Street, London, NW1 1HJ (020) 7387 8700

Provided and run by:
Brook Young People

Important: The provider of this service changed. See old profile

Latest inspection summary

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Background to this inspection

Updated 17 April 2020

Brook Euston is part of a larger organisation, Brook Young People, which provides several services across London including clinical services, counselling, education and training for young people and professionals and condom distribution schemes.

Brook Euston provides confidential sexual health services, support and advice to young people under the age of 25 and is recognised as a level 2 contraception and sexual health service (CASH). The Department of Health’s National Strategy for Sexual Health and HIV for England 2001 set out what services should provide at each recognised level. As a level 2 CASH service Brook Euston provides contraception, emergency contraception, condom distribution, screening for infections, pregnancy testing, termination of pregnancy referrals and counselling. Young people presenting with some sexually transmitted infections are referred to level 3 CASH services in London for treatment.

Brook Euston provides clinics six days a week from Mondays to Saturdays. The service is jointly commissioned by the London Borough of Camden and London Borough of Islington to provide young people’s sexual health services for both boroughs. Brook Euston is commissioned alongside The Brandon Centre and Homerton University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust as the Camden and Islington Young People’s Sexual Health Network (CAMISH) for both London Boroughs.

Brook's Education Team led on targeted outreach. They provided early interventions for vulnerable young people and those considered most at risk of poor sexual health, unplanned pregnancy or sexual exploitation. The service worked with young people referred to them by the youth offending service for sessions on healthy relationships, consent, sex and the law and access to services. Brook also coordinated the provision of Sex and Relationship Education (SRE) on behalf of the CAMISH network. They and oversaw and delivered related subjects in secondary schools and alternative provisions. Brook provided a sex and relationship education and training programme to young people and professionals engaged in working with young people.

The service is registered to provide the following regulated activities:

  • Diagnostic and screening procedures

  • Family planning

  • Treatment of disease, disorder or injury

Overall inspection

Good

Updated 17 April 2020

Services we rate

This service had not been previously rated. We rated it as Good overall. Following this inspection, we told the provider that it should make improvements, even though a regulation had not been breached, to help the service improve. Details are at the end of the report.

We rated Brook Euston as Good because:

  • The service had enough staff to care for children and young people and keep them safe. Staff had training in key skills, understood how to protect young people from abuse, and managed safety well. The service controlled infection risk well. Staff assessed risks to children and young people, acted on them and kept good care records. They managed medicines well. The service managed safety incidents well and learned lessons from them. Staff collected safety information and used it to improve the service.
  • Staff provided good care and treatment. Managers monitored the effectiveness of the service and made sure staff were competent. Staff worked well together for the benefit of children and young people, advised them on how to lead healthier lives, supported them to make decisions about their care, and had access to good information. Key services were available six days a week.
  • Staff treated children and young people with compassion and kindness, respecting their privacy and dignity, and valuing them as individuals. There was a strong visible person-centred culture and children and young people were empowered as partners in their care, practically and emotionally. Feedback from children and young people was consistently positive. Children and young people benefitted from being cared for by staff who showed discretion and sensitivity. Brook Euston employed two counsellors, and young people could be referred or self-refer to the counselling for various issues including pregnancy and termination of pregnancy advice, depression, mental and emotional health issues, low self-esteem, self-harm, risky behaviours and relationship and family difficulties.
  • Children and young people were involved in shaping a number of projects and products with Brook in the last year. They produced frequently asked questions for the Brook website, and the ‘welcome to Brook’ digital tool. This triaged young people in the waiting room and prioritised the most vulnerable. Over 200 young people were consulted to inform the Brook 2020-2023 strategy.
  • Brook provided children and young people with valuable educational online resources to make informed and positive choices about their lives. They also provided training and educational aids for teachers, other professionals and parents/carers of children and young people.
  • The service planned care to meet the needs of local people, took account of young people’s individual needs, and made it easy for people to give feedback.
  • Leaders ran services well using reliable information systems and supported staff to develop their skills. Staff understood the service’s vision and values, and how to apply them in their work. Staff felt respected, supported and valued. They were focused on the needs of children and young people receiving care. Staff were clear about their roles and accountabilities. The service engaged well with young people and the community to plan and manage services and all staff were committed to improving services continually.

However:

  • Despite the team's regular requests to do so, e xternal contractors cleaning the clinic daily were not keeping clear records of all areas cleaned to ensure appropriate infection control.

  • Nursing staff and clinical education and wellbeing support workers did not always have regular management supervision, and a number of systems in place for monitoring staff mandatory training compliance made it difficult to confirm that all staff were up to date.

  • Staff were not formally auditing waiting times of children and young people attending the clinic, in order to work with partners to ensure they could meet the capacity and demand.

  • There were some gaps in fire alarm testing to ensure that fire safety systems functioned safely.

  • There had been a number of recent IT outages which had an impact on the number of people seen in clinic.