Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

On this page

• Overview
• Learning culture
• Safe systems, pathways and transitions
• Safeguarding
• Involving people to manage risks
• Safe environments
• Safe and effective staffing
• Infection prevention and control
• Medicines optimisation

This means we looked for evidence that people were protected from abuse and avoidable harm.
At our last assessment we rated this key question Good. At this assessment, the rating has remained Good.

Good: This meant people were safe and protected from avoidable harm.

We rated this key question as good because:

• There was an open culture around learning from incidents when they happened.
• The service had links with other services in the local area and referred patients to them when needed.
• The trust trained staff in safeguarding adults and children and staff made referrals when needed.
• The service identified patients who needed emergency care and arranged for an ambulance to transfer them to the correct service.
• The environment was clean and well maintained.

However:

• Some equipment was out of date and staff had not recognised this.

This service scored 75 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

There had been no serious incidents in the 12 months prior to our visit. Staff could tell us what incidents to report and knew how to use the trust’s electronic incident reporting system. We saw that staff recognised and reported incidents correctly when they needed to. For example, the service reported safeguarding issues correctly.

The senior team met weekly to discuss the quality improvement plan. Managers fed this back to the team via team meetings and education sessions.

Staff responded to feedback from patients. Managers changed the triage procedure so that clinical staff spoke to patients who were likely to be redirected to non-emergency services sooner, in a private waiting area. This reduced the length of time patients needed to wait and improved the overall patient satisfaction with the service.

The UTC was a walk-in service for the public. The NHS 111 helpline could also refer patients to the service. Reception staff initially triaged patients on arrival. Reception staff could check patients in the waiting area until a clinical member of staff could review them. When needed staff could signpost patients to other non-emergency services, for example, pharmacy. Staff would also monitor patients closely in a private waiting area if they needed an ambulance to transfer them to emergency services.

The service had good links with other local health care providers and made referrals when necessary. Patients received the correct information on discharge and were referred on to appropriate services when necessary.

Staff received training in safeguarding children and adults. At the time of the inspection 83% of eligible staff had completed both children's and adults safeguarding training. Thirty-three precent of staff had received safeguarding adults training at level 3 and 65% had completed safeguarding children training at level 3. The trust could not provide training data for safeguarding adults at level 2 because of a reorganisation of statutory and mandatory training.

Despite the challenge with training compliance staff knew how to identify safeguarding issues for both adults and children. Staff could explain the process they would follow to raise a safeguarding concern and could give examples of what they would refer to the safeguarding team.

Between November 2024 and the date of the inspection the service had made 51 safeguarding referrals. The staff discuss safeguarding at the daily safety huddles.

Staff triaged all patients when they arrived at the unit and staff discussed potential risk factors with them. Clinical staff then reviewed risk factors with patients when they were treating them.

If a patient presented with an issue that the UTC could not provide treatment for, they would refer them to an appropriate service, for example, the local accident and emergency department or to a local mental health service.

We saw five episodes of care and saw that staff reviewed risk factors with patients and explained why they were doing this. For example, staff asked a patient that presented with a head injury if they had stayed conscious.

The environment was clean, tidy and in a good state of repair. There were hand sanitiser units available for people to use at the entrance and exit points of clinical areas.

The waiting area was open plan and in the main entrance to the hospital, so staff had a good view of patients. Staff reviewed the waiting area when they came out to find their next patient. If staff assessed a patient as needing closer observations, there was a separate waiting area they could use.

Staff had access to personal alarms.

Staff had easy access to clinic rooms and resuscitation trollies that had the right equipment available for staff to use.

Although a weekly safety audit to ensure all equipment was present and in date was completed, staff had wrongly signed to confirm they had checked paediatricresuscitation pads and they were in date. Managers could not be assured that the audits were effective.

The staff team disposed of clinical waste correctly. For example, they used the right clinical waste bins.

At the time of the inspection the staffing establishment was 30 staff members, and the service had no vacancies. Managers used agency staff who were familiar with the service, to cover vacant shifts. The trust has increased the number of staff on duty from 4 registered practitioners to 6, to meet the increased demand on the service.

Staff we spoke to said there were enough staff with the right skills on duty and that managers would help if they needed extra support.

Leaders told us that they were changing their training website and this meant that some training data was incorrect. They also told us that new courses had been added, and staff were catching up with these. The data supplied to us by the trust was that at the time of the inspection 84% of staff were up to date with their training. With four courses below 70% compliance. Safeguarding adults level 3 had a compliance rate of 33%, this was a new course for the service and only 3 staff had to complete it, and Safeguarding children level 3 had a 65% compliance rate. Patient safety level one had a 63% compliance rate and patient safety level 2 had a 35% compliance rate.

The unit was clean, tidy and in a good state of repair. Staff signed off a weekly cleaning schedule once the tasks were completed. There were hand sanitiser stations at entry and exit points which we saw staff using. We saw staff using the correct personal protective equipment when treating patients. Staff completed a quarterly hand hygiene audit and over the year prior to our inspection the service always met the trust target of 90% with the lowest score recorded in September 2025 which was 93%.

Staff followed the trust’s policy when prescribing and administering medicines.

Staff had access to patient records via electronic record systems that meant they could see what medication other services had already prescribed the patient. However, staff told us that sometimes the IT systems could be slow, and they did not have access to the system used by the local pharmacies.

The service employed non-medical prescribers. They received supervision to ensure they were up to date with their skills. Staff could also give medication under patient group directives once they have completed the right competencies.

The service issued both electronic and written prescriptions.