Archived: Solutions 4 Health- Newcastle

On this page

• Overview
• Assessing needs
• Delivering evidence-based care and treatment
• How staff, teams and services work together
• Supporting people to live healthier lives
• Monitoring and improving outcomes
• Consent to care and treatment

This is the first assessment for this newly registered service. This key question has been rated Requires Improvement. This meant the effectiveness of people’s care, treatment and support did not always achieve good outcomes or was inconsistent.

This service scored 54 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

We reviewed 23 service user records. There was an inconsistency in the quality of these records. We had concerns with 14 records, 11 of which had not documented any medical or sexual health history.

We identified 9 records that did not document if a chaperone was offered to the service user or if consent was gained when an examination took place. Within these records we found 2 mentioning swabs being sent for testing, it was not indicated who took the swab and when it was taken.

Staff informed us they receive updates to clinical practice and National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines at the daily staff meetings. Staff who also hold professional memberships were given updates on practice thorough these organisations.

Staff were able to access additional training and development through the service. However, staff informed us there was no study leave policy for doctors at the service. This had been raised with the senior leadership on multiple occasions by staff. Doctors had to secure their own funding for study leave externally.

We reviewed service user records and observed clinicians and service users. The majority of care and treatment delivered by the service was evidence based. However, we did note on 2 occasions where care was not provided in line with clinical guidance, where this had happened the clinicians involved had not provided a documented rationale that outlined the reasons for their care and treatment decisions.

The service had a bi-weekly multidisciplinary team meeting, minutes from these meetings were circulated to staff if they were unable to attend in person. We observed a multidisciplinary team meeting; no service users or treatment plans were discussed in this meeting. The service did not have a mechanism for professionals to discuss service users and treatment plans.

The service had a regular outreach team who went out into the community. This included attending schools, the local university, homeless shelters, long term mental health wards, local saunas, and the LGBTQIA+ area of the city. The outreach team met service users out in the community if they were unable to go to the service. The service also visited organisations upon request to deliver education and testing.

The service had a senior health promotion specialist who was responsible for the delivery of the chlamydia screening programme.

The service participated in the national audits for GUMCAD and submitted to the Sexual and Reproductive Health Activity Data set (SRHAD).

When reviewing service user records, we identified service user consent was not being documented in 9 records. We also identified in these records that it had not been documented if the service users had been offered a chaperone. The service manager advised us this should be standard for all service users.

We asked the service to carry out an audit of their care records around the documentation of chaperones. The audit showed that 14% of service users who required an examination did not have the offer of a chaperone documented.

Staff we spoke with understood Gillick Competence and Fraser Guidelines and supported children who wished to make decisions about their treatment.

Staff mandatory training for the Mental Capacity Act was at 89%.