Archived: Hounslow Urgent Care Centre

Updated 22 October 2018

Hounslow Urgent Care Centre serves Hounslow and surrounding areas. The service is co-located with the A&E department at the West Middlesex Hospital.

The centre is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week including public holidays. Patients can attend on a walk-in basis. Patients can self-present or they may be referred to the service, for example by the NHS 111 or their own GP. The local ambulance service also conveys minors patients directly into the centre. The centre provides a main point of entry to the West Middlesex Hospital A&E department. All patients are assessed (a process known as ‘streaming’) on entry by Emergency Nurse Practitioners. Patients with minor illnesses or minor injuries are streamed into the urgent care centre and more seriously unwell patients are streamed into the A&E department. Urgent care centre staff can also refer patients directly to other specialties within this trust and other hospitals, alternatively patients may be directed to another service if appropriate, such as the patient’s own GP.

Hounslow and Richmond Community Healthcare Trust (HRCH) is the lead provider of the service.

The day-to-day management of the urgent care centre is sub-contracted to Greenbrook Healthcare (Hounslow) Ltd who employs the service manager, GPs, lead nurse and the admin manager. The HRCH employs all other nursing staff and receptionists and also provides pharmacy services. The service has access to a large number of bank staff in north west London and they routinely use appropriately qualified agency GPs and emergency nurse practitioners to ensure the staff rota is filled.

Local leadership is provided by the urgent care centre’s lead GP, lead nurse and the service manager all of whom are permanently based at the Hounslow site. Greenbrook Healthcare has centralised governance systems in place and the provider’s medical director and central team provide additional clinical and managerial support and oversight.

Hounslow Urgent Care Centre is registered with the Care Quality Commission to provide the regulated activities of diagnostic and screening procedures; treatment of disease, disorder or injury; family planning; and maternity and midwifery services.

Updated 22 October 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 inspection at Hounslow Urgent Care Centre on 27 June 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.
• There was a programme of quality improvement including clinical audit which had a positive impact on quality of care and outcomes for patients.
• Staff had the skills, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care.
• 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.
• The service took complaints and concerns seriously and responded to them appropriately to improve the quality of care.
• Leaders had the capacity and skills to deliver high-quality, sustainable care.
• The provider engaged with patients and staff to improve the service.
• There was a strong focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels of the organisation.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Ensure the consistent use of the validated pain score tool.
• Review the list of medicines held in stock.
• Consider ways to improve performance in relation to the number of patients with diagnostic test(s) who were redirected to A&E within 2 hours.
• Formalise the vision and strategy for the service and raise staff awareness.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP
Chief Inspector of General Practice