Archived: Kingsway Health Centre

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Kingsway Health Centre as part of our inspection programme.

Kingsway Health Centre is provided by Stevenage Health Limited. Stevenage Health Limited is a GP federation made up of local GP practices which serves approximately 94,000 patients in Stevenage, Hertfordshire. Kingsway Health Centre provides a GP extended access service to patients registered with one of the eight NHS GP practices within the Stevenage locality. The service commenced on 1 July 2018.

Each practice has been allocated a number of appointments per week which can be directly booked into the extended access service. Appointments are available from 6:30pm to 8pm Monday to Friday and from 10am to 2:30pm on weekends. The service is available to patients of all ages under the terms of an Alternative Provider Medical Services (APMS) contract with the local Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). APMS is a contract with the CCG for delivering primary care services to local communities.

Our key findings were :

• The service did not have comprehensive systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen.
• The provider did not have clear oversight of safety risk assessments and checks, such as health and safety, infection prevention and control, fire safety and legionella.
• The systems in place to keep people safe and safeguarded from abuse needed strengthening.
• There were no risk assessments in place for some emergency equipment and medicines not held by the service.
• The service did not have a comprehensive system in place to ensure the required recruitment checks were always carried out, including DBS checks.
• The service was unable to demonstrate how staff had the skills, knowledge and experience to carry out their roles in some cases.
• The service reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided. It ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence-based guidelines.
• Patient feedback forms demonstrated that staff treated people with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
• Patient feedback forms indicated that they were able to access care and treatment from the service within an appropriate timescale for their needs.
• Structures, processes and systems to support good governance and management were not clearly set out, understood and effective.

The areas where the provider must make improvements as they are in breach of a regulation are:

• Ensure care and treatment is provided in a safe way to patients.
• Establish effective systems and processes to ensure good governance in accordance with the fundamental standards of care.

Please see the specific details on action required at the end of this report.

I am placing this service in special measures. Services placed in special measures will be inspected again within six months. If insufficient improvements have been made such that there remains a rating of inadequate for any population group, key question or overall, we will take action in line with our enforcement procedures to begin the process of preventing the provider from operating the service. This will lead to cancelling their registration or to varying the terms of their registration within six months if they do not improve.

Special measures will give people who use the service the reassurance that the care they get should improve.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGPChief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care