GATDOC

Updated 18 November 2019

GatDoc provides out of hours general practitioner cover in the evenings, overnight, at weekends and on bank holidays. The service provides telephone contact and access to general practitioners and home visits when required. The service covers over 206,000 patients, predominantly from the Gateshead area of Tyne and Wear.

The service is provided by Community Based Care (CBC) Health Ltd. CBC Health Ltd is a not-for profit member organisation who also hold the contracts for several GP practices in the Gateshead area and two extra care facilities.

In addition, they offer services including:

• Provide back office support to a number of GP practices (i.e. HR functions, health and safety and long-term condition recalls) under their ‘bureau’

• Provide pharmacy support to the majority of GP practices in the Gateshead area to aid issues such as medicines optimisation under their ‘Pharmicus’ arm.

Patients can access the out of hours service from 6pm to 8am Monday to Friday and 24 hours throughout Saturdays, Sundays and Bank Holidays. Calls to the service are handled by the North-East Ambulance Service (NEAS) via the 111-telephone number. GatDoc operates a triage model where all patients receive clinical telephone assessments. This prevents unnecessary journeys for patients and enables appropriate coordination of home visits and appointments according to clinical urgency and demand.

A team of sessional GPs provide the service, some of whom work at local practices. The clinicians are supported by administrators, receptionists and drivers as well as a management team responsible for the day to day running of the service. If patients need to be seen in person they are asked to attend the GatDoc premises which are in the urgent care centre of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Gateshead.

The provider is registered with CQC to deliver the Regulated Activities; treatment of disease, disorder or injury, and transport services, triage and medical advice provided remotely.

Updated 18 November 2019

We carried out a desktop inspection review of GATDOC on 17 October 2019 to follow up on a previous breach of regulation when we last inspected on 10 December 2018.

This inspection looked at the following key questions: safe.

We based our judgement of the quality of care at this service on a combination of:

• what we found when we inspected
• information from our ongoing monitoring of data about services and
• information from the provider, patients, the public and other organisations.

At the last inspection, we rated the practice as requires improvement for providing safe services.

We found that:

• In contravention of Home Office guidance and the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001 the provider did not have a licence to stock or dispense controlled drugs. The provider immediately took steps to obtain a licence and, in the meantime, had obtained confirmation from the Home Office that they could continue to stock and dispense controlled drugs pending their licence application being processed.

We also recommended that the provider should:

• Undertake clinical audit activity that can lead to and demonstrate improvements in patient care and outcomes.

We have now rated this practice as good overall and good for all population groups.

We found that:

• The provider had obtained and furnished us with a copy of the necessary licence to stock or dispense controlled drugs.
• The provider also supplied copies of clinical audits on subjects including antiobiotic use and diazepam prescribing to demonstrate adherence to clinical guidelines and improvement in patient outcomes.

Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP

Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care