- Community healthcare service
The Angel Centre
Assessment report published 23 June 2025
Contents
Judgements
Our view of the service
Date of assessment: 15 April 2025, this included a site visit on 15 April 2025.
The Angel Centre Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC) covers Cleveland, Durham and Northumbria and is responsible for providing a service for adults aged 18 years and above with the option to also include young people aged 16 and 17 years of age. The SARC provides immediate over-the-phone advice and signposting to specialist services as well as healthcare including access to medicines and forensic medical examinations.
The SARC has specialist crisis workers and forensic medical examiners who are available 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.
The Angel Centre SARC is located on an industrial estate in a building which has been recently renovated and redesigned especially for the SARC provision and to comply with the nationally recognised accreditation standards. The facilities include two forensic pods each containing pre-examination rooms, forensic medical examination rooms with shower facilities, and an aftercare room. There are also shower facilities for staff, storage facilities and staff offices with the appropriate security measures. The building also includes space for partner agencies including police colleagues to work from when bringing a patient to the SARC.
The SARC is managed by Mountain Healthcare Limited and is commissioned jointly by NHS England and the Police.
During the inspection we spoke with the manager, the deputy manager, a crisis worker and one of the sexual offences examiners. The associate head of healthcare and the regional contract manager were also present during our visit. We checked the premises including access, fire safety and cleanliness and looked at the SARC’s policies and procedures, and other records about how the service was managed.
We assessed 10 quality statements for this assessment under the safe, effective, caring and well-led key questions. We found the provider had met the regulations and evidence showed that people received a good standard of care and treatment.