1st September 2014
During a routine inspection
Preston Primary Care Centre Limited (PPCC) is registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC), to provide ‘Out-of-hours’ (OOH) services. Patients are referred to PPCC via the GP practices answering service which gives the phone number for the service to their patients. Alternatively it is accessed via an A&E diversion process that is in place with Royal Preston Hospital, whereby patients attending A&E who could be appropriately managed by a GP service are transferred to PPCC for their care needs.
PPCC are registered to deliver the following activities; family planning, treatment for disease, disorder and injury, diagnostic and screening services and transport services, triage and medical advice.
There are effective systems in place to ensure the service could be delivered to the widest range of patients with varying levels of need. There is good collaborative working between the provider and other healthcare and social care agencies which ensure patients receive the best outcomes in the shortest possible time.
The staff are caring, responsive to the needs of patients and considered care and treatment in line with best practice guidelines.
There are some areas for improvement including: reviewing policies on a regular basis, reviewing systems for monitoring expiry dates of drugs and emergency equipment in an auditable manner. Risk assessments for drugs stored in the emergency cars used by GPs for home visits are needed, recording of serial numbers on blank prescription sheets once allocated to GPs and to formalise clinical supervision sessions for all nurses.
Please note that when referring to information throughout this report, for example any reference to data, this relates to the most recent information available to the CQC at that time.