Urgent Care Centre

Updated 31 October 2017

The Urgent Care Centre within Doncaster Royal Infirmary, Doncaster, DN2 5LT provides an out-of-hours (OOH) GP service to the area of Doncaster. The service is provided by FCMS (NW) Limited (Newfield House, Vicarage Lane, Blackpool, FY4 4EW).

The Urgent Care Centre is contracted by the local clinical commissioning group (CCG) to provide OOH primary medical services to registered patients and those requiring immediate and necessary treatment in Doncaster and the surrounding area when GP practices are closed which includes overnight, during weekends, bank holidays and when GP practices are closed for training.

Most patients access the out-of-hours service by calling their own GP and diverted to the OOH service automatically or by ringing NHS 111. Patients who contact the service may be provided with advice, receive a telephone consultation, an appointment or a home visit, depending on their needs.

The service is open seven days a week (including bank holidays) from 6pm to 8am nightly  and is also open from 6pm on Friday to 8am Monday.

The average number of patients seen each week is 1,150.

Updated 31 October 2017

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection of the Urgent Care Centre on 28 November and 1 December 2016. The overall rating for the service was requires improvement with good for providing effective, caring and responsive services and requires improvement for safety and being well-led. The full comprehensive report on the previous inspection can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for the Urgent Care Centre on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

This inspection was carried out on 24 September 2017 to confirm that the provider had carried out their plan to meet the legal requirements in relation to the breaches in regulations that we identified in our previous inspection in 2016. This report covers our findings in relation to those requirements and also additional improvements made since our last inspection.

Overall the service is now rated as good.

Our key findings were as follows:

• The provider had reviewed the systems in place to minimise risks to patient safety. In particular, all relevant staff had now completed the chaperone training and a self directed training pack had been developed to support the online learning.  There was a system in place to ensure equipment was maintained to an appropriate standard and in line with manufacturers’ guidance.
• The provider had a process to check agency, bank and sessional staff met recruitment requirements.
• Staff interviewed demonstrated they understood their responsibilities regarding safeguarding, who the leads were and were trained to the relevant level.
• The provider had reviewed the arrangements for managing medicines at the service, including availability of emergency medicines and storage of vaccines to ensure they were stored correctly and available when needed. Blank prescription forms and pads were now securely stored and there were systems in place to monitor their use.
• There were arrangements in place to to keep staff informed and up-to-date.The provider reviewed how updates and alerts were shared with all staff and implemented a web-based risk management database to record all risk management activity, including incidents, complaints and queries.
• There was a clear leadership structure and staff were aware who the  leads were. The service had a number of policies and procedures to govern activity and held regular governance meetings.The service proactively sought feedback from staff and patients, which it acted on.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP 

Chief Inspector of General Practice