West Lancs Health Centre Also known as Urgent Care Centre

Updated 2 March 2020

The UTC at West Lancashire health centre provides care to the population of West Lancashire. It is commissioned by the West Lancashire clinical commissioning group (CCG) and provides services to the local population of 114,000.

The UTC provides treatment by GPs and nurses for patients between 8am and 8pm, seven days a week and 365 days a year, no appointment is required. Services are provided by Virgin Care Services Limited on behalf of NHS West Lancashire CCG.

The UTC has been purpose built and provided a light and spacious environment, there are eight treatment rooms, a resuscitation room and an observation ward with four adult beds and a dedicated children’s bed. There is a large reception area with sufficient seating and additional office space for administration staff and managers.

The centre provides assessment and treatment for urgent health conditions such as: minor burns and scalds, minor injuries and ailments, skin infections and suspected broken bones, sprains and strains. The centre has access to X-ray services on site and is staffed primarily by health care assistants, nurses, advanced nurse practitioners, paramedic practitioners and doctors. The clinical team are supported with receptionists and a management and administrative team.

There is parking outside the centre including dedicated disabled spaces and the main railway station is nearby; all care is provided on a ground floor of a shared building.

The service operates from: West Lancashire Health Centre, Wigan Road, Ormskirk, L39 2AZ.

Updated 2 March 2020

This service is rated as Good overall. (This service has not been inspected previously)

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 Lancashire urgent treatment centre (UTC) on 16 January 2020. This was the first inspection of this urgent treatment centre and was conducted as part of our inspection programme. Our inspection included a visit to the service’s site at Wigan Road, Ormskirk, the UTC is co-located with other NHS clinical services including X-Ray, out of hours and dentistry which did not form part of our inspection.

The head of urgent care is the registered manager. A registered manager is a person who is registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

As part of our inspection, 57 people provided feedback about the service via CQC comment cards and we spoke to a further two people who told us about their experiences using the service during the inspection visit. All of them were very positive about the service. Patients described the service as excellent and praised the staff and GPs for their caring and understanding attitude. They told us they found the service very convenient and the clinicians very caring and professional.

Our key findings were :

• The service had comprehensive 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. There was a blame free culture.
• 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 strong focus on quality improvement. Audit was meaningful and informed by service outcomes.
• Patients were able to access care and treatment from the service within an appropriate timescale for their needs. Patient feedback on the service was consistently positive.
• Staff involved and treated people with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
• Staff at all levels were enthusiastic and demonstrated high levels of knowledge and professionalism.
• There was a common focus on improving the quality and sustainability of care.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Review and update fire procedures.

We saw the following outstanding practice:

• The service conducted a variety of real-time scenario testing for emergency medical situations which might arise, these were observed, debriefed and any learning identified, and adjustments made to improve future responses.

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