BPAS - Birmingham South

Updated 20 September 2022

BPAS Birmingham South are known as the Robert Clinic and provide support, information, treatment and aftercare for patients seeking help with regulating their fertility and associated sexual health needs. Its main activity is termination of pregnancy.

Services are booked at the clinic for patients within the West Midlands region via a national telephone appointment service.

The service provides early medical abortion up to nine weeks and six days gestation and surgical abortion under local anaesthetic up to 13 weeks and six days gestation. Surgical abortion under conscious sedation can be provided up to 17 weeks and six days. Surgical abortions under general anaesthetic are not conducted at the clinic, but they can be arranged for women at other BPAS clinics when necessary.

BPAS provide service specific counselling and treatment, sexual health screening and contraception and carry out vasectomies.

The service is registered to provide the following regulated activities:

• Termination of Pregnancy.
• Family Planning Service.
• Treatment of Disease, Disorder or Injury.
• Diagnostic Imaging Services.
• Surgical procedures.

Under these activities the service provided:

• Pregnancy Testing.
• Unplanned Pregnancy Counselling.
• Early Medical Abortion.
• Surgical termination of pregnancy (SToP).
• Abortion Aftercare.
• Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) testing and treatment.
• Contraceptive advice and supply.
• Vasectomies.

The registered manager had been registered since May 2021 and is also the registered manager of another local BPAS registered location.

The government approved the use of misoprostol for medical abortions at home in England on 1 January 2019. On 30 March 2020, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care made two temporary measures that superseded the previous approval. The temporary arrangements were aimed at minimising the risk of transmission of coronavirus (COVID-19) and ensuring continued access to early medical abortion services during the COVID-19 pandemic. To date, the amendments made are still in place.

The new arrangement meant that pregnant women (and girls) who met an eligibility criteria would be able to take two medicines, Mifepristone and Misoprostol, for an early medical abortion up to nine weeks and six days gestation, in their own homes and without the need to first attend a hospital or clinic. The arrangement also meant medical practitioners could provide remote consultations and prescribe medicines for early medical abortions for women to take in their own home without the need to first attend a hospital or clinic.

Updated 20 September 2022

BPAS Birmingham South is operated by the national charity British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS). BPAS Birmingham South is also known as the Robert Clinic.

We inspected BPAS Birmingham South in response to information we had received about the service. We used our focussed inspection methodology and we did not inspect all aspects of the care provided. We only inspected the safe and well led key questions during this inspection. BPAS Birmingham South had a comprehensive inspection in September 2019 where it was rated good overall.

From June 2021 to May 2022, the service completed 1142 medical abortions and 1525 surgical abortions.

We rated it as requires improvement because:

• Not all notifiable events were reported in line with mandatory legal reporting regulations.
• The service was not using a specific paediatric early warning score tool for use with children under the age of 16 years undergoing surgical terminations of pregnancy.
• Governance arrangements were not sufficiently robust or effective to always identify concerns and risks.
• Pregnancy remains were not always stored following the provider's policy or best practice.
• Not all staff had completed their mandatory training.
• Emergency equipment and intravenous medicines were not stored securely.

However

• The service had enough staff to care for women and keep them safe. Staff had training in key skills, understood how to protect women from abuse, and managed safety well. The service controlled infection risk well. Staff kept good care records. The service learned lessons from incidents.
• Leaders ran services well using reliable information systems and supported staff to develop their skills. Staff felt respected, supported and valued and strong teamworking was evident. All staff were clear about their roles and accountabilities. The service engaged well with women to plan and manage services and all staff were committed to improving services.

Updated 20 September 2022

See overall summary of this service.