Archived: Bedford On Call Also known as Bedoc

Bedford on Call Limited (known as BEDOC) is a group of GPs with practices in North Bedfordshire who work in shifts to provide urgent medical care for their patients outside normal surgery hours. Patients access the service by telephoning their own doctors surgery or by calling NHS Direct.

We carried out an out-of-hours announced inspection of the service on the 29 January 2014. A team made up of a practice nurse, practice manager an expert-by-experience and a GP assisted the inspectors with the inspection.

During the visit we observed care being given, talked to patients and staff and looked at treatment records, policies and procedures and other paper work.

We found that patients who used the service were kept safe and protected from avoidable harm. Care and support was given to patients by a caring team of staff who were responsive to patient’s needs.

We found some dust under examination couches in treatment rooms. Although we did not consider this a significant risk to patient safety we have asked the provider to monitor the cleaning arrangements they have in place to make sure all areas are clean and dust free.

Feedback from patients during the inspection and from people who had completed comment cards all expressed a high level of satisfaction with the service they had received. The majority of patients felt that overall care and treatment was good, that staff were caring and treated people in a sensitive, dignified manner.

There was rigorous monitoring of all clinician performance which ensured that poor performance was dealt with quickly. Because of this, any risk to patient care and safety was minimised.

We found locum doctors were not employed at BEDOC and the only person who was not a permanent member of staff was a nurse, recruited for a specific role. This significantly contributed to the safety of patients.