Updated 8 November 2017
Care UK is the UK's largest independent provider of health and social care. Care UK-Bucks provides out-of-hours (OOH) primary medical services across Buckinghamshire when GP practices are closed. The OOH service covers a population of approximately 550,000 people across the county of Buckinghamshire and in the last 12 months offered 66,424 patient contacts. The area covered incorporates two Clinical Commissioning Group areas, Aylesbury Vale and Chiltern.
Most patients access the OOH service via the NHS 111 telephone service. Patients may be seen by a clinician or receive a telephone consultation or a home visit, depending on their needs. Occasionally patients access services as a walk-in patient or via ‘direct booking pilot’ project (Three local practices are able to fax patient details directly to Care UK-Bucks between 6pm and 6.30pm if they are not able to offer the appointment).
We visited the Care UK-Bucks call centre and headquarters in Aylesbury during this inspection. It was not necessary to visit any of the five primary care centres as the evidence required to reach a judgement was held at the headquarters.
The full address for call centre and headquarters is:
- Care UK-Bucks, Unit 3, Midshires Business Park, Smeaton Close, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, HP19 8HL.
Out-of-hours (OOH) services are provided from five primary care centres across the county on every day of the year. They are:
- Stoke Mandeville OOH: Stoke Mandeville Hospital is open from 6.30pm to 8am (overnight) Monday to Saturday and from 8am on a Saturday through to 8am Monday morning. This centre also opens on bank holidays from 8am to 8am the next day. We visited this site during the inspection.
- Amersham OOHs: Amersham Health Centre is open from 9am to 9pm on a Saturday and from 9am to 7pm on Sunday. This centre also open on bank holidays. We did not inspect this site.
- Buckingham OOH: Buckingham Community Hospital is open from 2pm to 4pm on a Saturday and Sunday. This centre also open on bank holidays. We did not inspect this site.
- Wycombe OOH: Wycombe General Hospital is open from 6.30pm to 8am (overnight) Monday to Saturday and from 8am on a Saturday through to 8am Monday morning. This centre also open on bank holidays from 8am to 8am the next day. An inspection visit at Wycombe OOH is reported in a separate inspection report along with ‘Minor Injuries Illness Unit’ inspection visit. This is due to way the provider is registered with the Care Quality Commission. This out-of-hours (OOH) service is co-located with a ‘Minor Injuries Illness Unit’ that is also managed by the Care UK-Bucks. We visited this site during the inspection.
- Poplar Grove Practice in Aylesbury: Once a month from 1pm to 6pm when local GPs are closed during the training session to meet the increasing demand. We did not inspect this site.
OOH Primary Care Centres are situated in rented spaces from the Buckinghamshire Health Care NHS Trust (apart from the Poplar Grove Practice) and the facilities are managed by the respective organisation.