Tower Hamlets Health and Wellbeing Service

Updated 27 September 2022

Tower Hamlets Health and Wellbeing Service (also known as Compass Safe East) is run by Compass - Services to Improve Health and Wellbeing. It is a registered charity and national provider of services that run school nursing, mental health support team services, substance misuse and sexual health services for children and young people across England.

Tower Hamlets Health and Wellbeing Service had recently changed their address, and had updated their CQC registration to reflect this.

Tower Hamlets Health and Wellbeing Service is a free, confidential health and wellbeing service for children and young people who need support around sexual health and/or drug and alcohol use. The service provides a regulated activity around sexual health only, and not for their drug and alcohol psychosocial support services. The service operated from a creative youth service in Tower Hamlets, called Spotlight Hub.

The service provides confidential sexual health services, support and advice to young people under the age of 25 living in the borough of Tower Hamlets. It is recognised as a level 2 contraception and sexual health service (CASH). The Department of Health's National Strategy for Sexual Health and HIV for England 2001 set out what services should provide at each recognised level. As a level 2 CASH service Tower Hamlets Health and Wellbeing Service provides contraception, emergency contraception, condom distribution, screening for infections, pregnancy testing, termination of pregnancy referrals and referrals for counselling. The contraception and sexual health registered nurses deliver sexual health provision to young people within outreach settings through 'clinic in a box'. This involves transportation of sexually transmitted infection tests and medicines as well as issue and supply of these medicines to young people within outreach settings.

Young people presenting with some sexually transmitted infections are referred to level 3 CASH services in London for treatment.

Tower Hamlets Health and Wellbeing Service provides clinics five days a week from Monday to Fridays.

At the time of inspection, there was a registered manager in place.

The service is registered to provide the following regulated activities:

• Diagnostic and screening procedures
• Treatment of disease, disorder or injury

Updated 27 September 2022

This service had not been previously rated. We rated it as good overall. Following this inspection, we told the provider that it should make improvements, even though a regulation had not been breached, to help the service improve. Details are at the end of the report.

We rated Tower Hamlets Health and Wellbeing Service as good because:

• The service had enough staff to care for young people and keep them safe. Staff had training in key skills, understood how to protect young people from abuse, and managed safety well. The service controlled infection risk well. Staff assessed risks to children and young people, acted on them and kept records. The service managed safety incidents well and learned lessons from them. Staff collected safety information and used it to improve the service.
• Staff provided good care and treatment. Managers monitored the effectiveness of the service and made sure staff were competent. Staff worked well together for the benefit of young people, advised them on how to lead healthier lives, supported them to make decisions about their care, and had access to good information. Sexual health services were available five days a week.
• There were excellent working relationships between registered sexual health nurses and the health and wellbeing practitioners. Staff also had excellent working relationships with external agencies, for example, GPs, commissioners, youth centre workers, and local mental health teams. The service worked in partnership with a local GP and local mental health outreach team to provide a specialist health hub dedicated to young people's physical health and wellbeing.
• Staff treated young people with compassion and kindness, respecting their privacy and dignity, and valuing them as individuals. There was a strong visible person-centred culture and children and young people were empowered as partners in their care, practically and emotionally. Feedback from young people was consistently positive. Children and young people benefitted from being cared for by staff who showed discretion and sensitivity.
• The service planned care to meet the needs of local people, took account of young people’s individual needs, and made it easy for people to give feedback.
• The service was an integrated health and wellbeing service located in a youth centre. This meant young people visiting the youth centre also had easy access to the sexual health services if required. Staff also worked with youth centre workers to raise awareness of their services and to educate young people on sexual health topics.
• Leaders ran services well using reliable information systems and supported staff to develop their skills. Staff understood the service’s vision and values, and how to apply them in their work. Staff felt respected, supported and valued. They were focused on the needs of young people receiving care. Staff were clear about their roles and accountabilities. The service engaged well with young people and the community to plan and manage services and all staff were committed to improving services continually.

However:

• Although staff assessed and recorded risk well, staff sometimes recorded risk in different places on the care record system, so it was not always recorded in a consistent manner and easy to find. The provider recognised the limits of the care record system and was due to upgrade the system by October 2022.

Updated 27 September 2022

See summary above for details.