Aston Kidney Treatment Centre

Updated 15 May 2020

Aston Kidney Treatment Centre is operated by Diaverum Facilities Management Limited. The service registered with CQC in 2014. It is in Aston which is part of Birmingham in the West Midlands. The service receives referrals from a local Birmingham based NHS foundation trust.

At the time of the inspection, the clinic manager had been appointed eight months previously and was registered with the CQC in October 2019.

There were no special reviews or investigations of the service ongoing by the CQC at any time during the 12 months before this inspection. The service has been inspected four times, and the most recent inspection took place in June and July 2017. At this inspection several concerns were identified, and the service was issued with two requirement notices. Breaches of the Health and Social Care Act (2014) were found within two regulations: Regulation 13 Safeguarding service users from abuse and improper treatment and Regulation 15 Premises and Equipment.

Updated 15 May 2020

Aston Kidney Treatment Centre is operated by Diaverum Facilities Management Limited. The service has 24 dialysis stations which comprise of two bays with eight stations, one bay with four stations and four side rooms. Facilities include a waiting room with 18 chairs, including seating for patients who required bariatric seating, two private consultation rooms for outpatient appointments, a meeting room. a patient kitchen and patient parking.

The service provides haemodialysis to patients aged 18 and over.

We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology. We carried out the inspection on 11 March 2020.

To get to the heart of patients’ experiences of care and treatment, we ask the same five questions of all services: are they safe, effective, caring, responsive to people's needs, and well-led? Where we have a legal duty to do so we rate services’ performance against each key question as outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate.

Throughout the inspection, we took account of what people told us and how the provider understood and complied with the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

Services we rate

We have not previously rated this service. We rated it as Good overall.

We found the following areas of good practice:

• The service had enough staff to care for patients and keep them safe. Staff had training in key skills, understood how to protect patients from abuse, and managed safety well. The service mostly controlled infection risk well. Staff assessed risks to patients and mostly acted on them. They mostly managed medicines well. 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 and gave patients pain relief when they needed it. Managers monitored the effectiveness of the service and made sure staff were competent. Staff worked well together for the benefit of patients, advised them on how to lead healthier lives, supported them to make decisions about their care, and had access to good information.
• Staff treated patients with compassion and kindness, respected their privacy and dignity, took account of their individual needs, and helped them understand their conditions. They provided emotional support to patients, families and carers.
• The service planned care to meet the needs of local people, took account of patients’ individual needs, and made it easy for people to give feedback.
• 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 patients receiving care. Staff were clear about their roles and accountabilities. The service engaged well with patients and the community to plan and manage services and all staff were committed to improving services continually.

However, we also found the following issues that the service provider needs to improve:

• Staff did not always manage clinical waste well; lids on sharps bins were left open.
• Staff did not respond when patients’ dialysis machines alarmed.
• Vital sign recording sheets showed that on two instances out of 13 checked, patents did not have their vital signs checked frequently enough.
• Staff did not always check prescriptions when administering one specific medicine.
• One policy reviewed did not reference all available guidelines and the service did not have access to a policy about the Accessible Information Standard.
• Within the first half of 2019, the patient satisfaction survey results were low compared to other Diaverum clinics. Managers created action plans to address this, and the results improved as a result.
• Most of the written literature available to patients was in English.
• Patient transport delays impacted on patients undertaking their full treatment or being delayed at the clinic. However, we acknowledged that the clinic manager took action to address this where possible.

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.

Heidi Smoult

Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals (Midlands)

Updated 15 May 2020

Aston Kidney Treatment Centre is operated by Diaverum Facilities Management Limited.

The service provides haemodialysis to patients aged 18 and over.

We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology. We carried out the inspection on 11 March 2020.

We have not previously rated this service. Following this inspection we rated the service as ‘Good’ overall. All domains were rated good with the exception of ‘Safe’ which was rated as ‘Requires Improvement’.