West Midlands Integrated Urgent Care - Worcester

Updated 21 June 2018

West Midlands Integrated Urgent Care - Worcester Out of Hours - Care UK provides out-of-hours primary medical services to patients in the Worcester, Kidderminster, Redditch, Malvern, Evesham and surrounding areas when GP practices are closed. The administrative base is located at Stonham House, Blackpole Trading Estate West, Worcester, Worcestershire, WR3 8TJ.

The service covers a population of approximately 580,000 people across the county of Worcestershire. The out-of-hours service is provided across five primary care centres located at Worcester, Kidderminster and Redditch, which are open seven days per week and Evesham and Malvern which are open at weekends. The service also provides support to two local prisons, this is mainly by telephone however clinicians will attend if required.

The area covered incorporates three Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) areas, Redditch and Bromsgrove, South Worcestershire and Wyre Forest. The service’s workforce is made up of 66% clinical and 34% non clinical staff.

Patients access the out-of-hours service via the NHS 111 telephone service. Patients may be seen by a clinician at one of the primary care centres, receive a telephone consultation or a home visit, depending on their needs. Patients can also access the primary care centres as a walk-in patient or be referred from the hospital accident and emergency departments. In addition the service has a direct contact number for local health professionals to use, which generates between 400 and 1,000 calls per month..

We carried out an announced inspection outside standard working hours on 28 and 29 March 2018. This included the sites at Blackpole Trading Estate, Kidderminster and Redditch. During the inspection we spoke with a range of staff; this included the head of contracts, the medical director/clinical lead, two GPs, the operations manager, the lead nurse, the regional clinical governance manager, a call centre manager, two base co-ordinators, reception staff and drivers. We also spoke with seven patients.

Updated 21 June 2018

This service is rated as Good overall.

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? – Good

Are services effective? – Good

Are services caring? – Good

Are services responsive? – Good

Are services well-led? –Good

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at West Midlands Integrated Urgent Care - Worcester Out of Hours on 28 and 29 March 2018 as part of our inspection programme.

At this inspection we found:

• The service had good systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. When they did happen, the service learned from them and improved their processes.
• The service routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided. It ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence-based guidelines.
• Staff involved and treated people with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
• Patients were able to access care and treatment from the service within an appropriate timescale for their needs.
• Systems were in place to manage people who experienced long waits. For example, a telephone call (called a ‘comfort call’) was made to patients to check on their welfare and ensure their situation had not changed.
• The service had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs. The vehicles used for home visits were clean and well equipped.
• The service had systems in place to forward plan for times of high demand for example bank holidays.
• There was a clear leadership structure and staff felt supported by the management team.
• Care UK carried out an annual staff survey and had increased responses overall from the 2016 results for example, the number of staff who would recommend Care UK services to a someone needing care had increased from 57% in the 2016 survey to 88% in 2017.

• There was a strong focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels of the organisation.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice