Arrowe Park Urgent Treatment Centre

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• Overview
• Kindness, compassion and dignity
• Treating people as individuals
• Independence, choice and control
• Responding to people’s immediate needs
• Workforce wellbeing and enablement

Caring – this means we looked for evidence that people were treated with kindness, compassion, and dignity. We assessed all quality statements from this key question. The rating remains good following this assessment.

This service scored 65 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

We observed that staff treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity. Consultations took place in one of four curtained bays within the same area. Maintaining privacy was difficult due to the proximity of the bays in the temporary accommodation. We spoke with a patient who reported they had been there for multiple days in a row. They stated, “that the nursing staff and services were good, but the wait times were an issue and staff appeared under resourced.” Feedback from the trust’s patient experience survey included positive comments from patients such as “staff were kind and conscientious. They were run off their feet but still came across as caring. Staff were patient, excellent, kind, and informative.”

Staff we spoke with told us that although they had staffing challenges to deal with, they still ensured each patient was met with kindness, care, and patience.

The service treated people as individuals and made sure people’s care, support and treatment met their needs and preferences. Staff took account of people’s abilities, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics. Staff were trained in equality and diversity and those we spoke with felt informed and able to help people with individual and specific needs. Interpretation services were available for people whose first language was not English.

The trust worked with organisations to support people with learning disabilities and autistic people and this work had supported them in better understanding people’s experiences and how to adjust services to meet their needs. We saw positive feedback from a parent of an autistic person.

The service promoted people’s independence, so people knew their rights and had choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing. There was information available in the waiting area that detailed the different stages of the journey through the UTC. The length of wait to be seen was also displayed.

The service sent people a text message once they booked an appointment to support those with additional learning needs, neurodiversity (including ADHD) and people with a learning disability and autistic people. The message helped both the patient and staff prepare for the consultation and identify any special requirements in advance. The service designed this approach to increase independence by reducing anxiety and improving communication for everyone involved.

The service listened to and understood people’s needs, views and wishes. Staff responded to people’s needs in the moment and acted to minimise any discomfort, concern or distress. There was a system for patient assessment and triage that ensured people with immediate needs had access to services as soon as possible. However this was not always within the recommended 15-minute timeframe.

Members of the reception team were provided with training in basic life support, and we saw posters in reception and clinical areas around the signs and symptoms of sepsis. However, non-clinical staff had not received formal training on the identification of sepsis.

Staff we spoke to said they were able to identify and signpost people requiring urgent attention such a sepsis or cardiac arrest. We were told they could refer people to the emergency department and/or seek help from the GPs on site. However, staff also said they would welcome more standard operating procedures (SOPs) such as those to deal with chest pain to ensure appropriate action was always taken. At the time of the assessment there was no such SOP in place.

The provider did not demonstrate effective systems to promote staff wellbeing and enable the delivery of good patient care. Staff did not consistently have access to the necessary resources and facilities for safe working such as embedded standard operating procedures (SOPs). Evidence submitted by the provider identified that many SOPs were only introduced during the months of August and September 2025 and had not been in place prior to our assessment.

Staff could not always request reasonable adjustments, use flexible working, or take annual leave due to a shortage of suitably qualified staff and high sickness levels.

Although staff had opportunities to provide feedback, raise concerns, and suggest improvements, they reported limited time to attend meetings where these could be discussed in detail. Reported incidents did not always result in learning, and leaders did not always provide support when requested. Staff raised concerns about low staffing levels affecting training opportunities and felt management did not adequately acknowledge or address their concerns. Leaders recognised that training levels had fallen below the requirements for safe care in the urgent treatment centre and mitigated this by adjusting the staff rota to ensure at least one trained person was on each shift. However, the evidence provided could not substantiate this.

Leaders recognised staffing challenges, recorded them on the organisational risk register, and discussed them regularly. At the time of assessment, three new staff members were undergoing recruitment, with one already in induction.

Despite these challenges, staff felt valued and supported by their colleagues and reported good team working that supported safe and effective patient care and treatment.