Archived: Swingate House

Updated 10 July 2019

• Swingate House (also known as Hertfordshire Eye Hospital) is provided by Mr Adrian Parnaby-Price who is the registered manager of the service. A registered manager is a person who is registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.
• The address of the service is Second Floor, Swingate House East, Danestrete, Stevenage, Hertfordshire, SG1 1XE.
• The telephone number is 0800 634 9860.
• The building is owned and managed by Stevenage Borough Council and is subject to public sector maintenance and building service standards. It is located in the centre of Stevenage and is 100 yards from the central bus terminus, 200 yards from Stevenage railway station and has several car parks within 500 yards. There are several organisations based within the premises.
• The service is registered with the CQC to provide the following regulated activity:

• Surgical procedures.

• Hertfordshire Eye Hospital is a community ophthalmology service. The service does not employ any staff members and does not currently see any patients. The service has previously been commissioned to provide the following treatments:

• Suspected and actual ocular hypertension and glaucoma.
• Dry eyes, blepharitis.
• Ingrowing eyelashes.
• Lid lesions.
• Posterior vitreous detachment, floaters and flashers.
• Dry age-related macular degermation and pigmented retinal abnormalities.

The service has previously been commissioned to provide minor surgical procedures that are suitable to be delivered in a community setting, including:

• Punctal plugs and punctual enlargement.
• Skin/lid lesion surgery, e.g. for cysts and papillomas.
• Eye lash removal (ingrowing).
• Entropion repair.
• Ectropion repair.
• Ptosis surgery.

How we inspected this service

Our inspection team was led by a CQC lead inspector and included a GP specialist adviser. Before our inspection, we gathered and reviewed information from the local Clinical Commissioning Group, the pre-inspection return submitted by the provider and patient feedback submitted online.

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 10 July 2019

This service is rated as Requires improvement overall.

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? – Inadequate

Are services effective? – Good

Are services caring? – Good

Are services responsive? – Good

Are services well-led? – Requires improvement

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Swingate House (also known as Hertfordshire Eye Hospital) as part of our inspection programme.

Hertfordshire Eye Hospital (HEH) is a privately run service which provides a community ophthalmology service to treat and manage patients with ophthalmic conditions. The service is consultant led and delivers services in a community setting as a first point of referral for GP ophthalmology referrals (with the exception of children under 18, urgent and two week cancer referrals). The service model is to provide a community consultant led ophthalmology clinical assessment and treatment service. The service was commissioned by East and North Hertfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) to provide services from 2012 to 31 May 2017. Herts Valley CCG commissioned HEH to provideservices from April 2013 to 31 December 2018. HEH does not currently provide services to patients.

Our key findings were:

• The service did not have comprehensive systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen.
• The service reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided. It ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence-based guidelines.
• Previous patient feedback forms indicated that staff treated people with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
• Previous patient feedback forms indicated that they were able to access care and treatment from the service within an appropriate timescale for their needs.
• Structures, processes and systems to support good governance and management were not clearly set out, understood and effective.

The area where the provider must make improvements as they are in breach of a regulation is:

• Ensure care and treatment is provided in a safe way to patients.
• Establish effective systems and processes to ensure good governance in accordance with the fundamental standards of care.

Please see the specific details on action required at the end of this report.