• Doctor
  • Out of hours GP service

Archived: Practice Plus Group - North West London

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

Unit 1, Square One, Navigator Park, Southall Lane, Southall, Middlesex, UB2 5NH (020) 3402 1300

Provided and run by:
Practice Plus Group Urgent Care Limited

Important: This service is now registered at a different address - see new profile

Latest inspection summary

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Background to this inspection

Updated 1 November 2019

Care UK is a large UK based independent provider of health and social care.

Care UK-North West London provides out-of-hours (OOH) primary medical services when GP practices are closed. The out-of-hours service covers a population of over a million people across outer North West London including Brent, Harrow, Hillingdon, Ealing and Hounslow.

The provider is contracted by the NHS clinical commissioning groups and also has 162 Service Level Agreements (SLA’s) for individual practices.

Most patients access the out of hours service via the NHS 111 telephone service. Patients may be seen by a clinician, receive a telephone consultation or a home visit, depending on their needs. Rarely patients access services as a walk-in patient.

The administrative base and call centre for Care UK- North West London is located in Southall. The full address for call centre and headquarters is:

  • Care UK- North West London, Unit 1, Square One, Navigator Park, Southall Lane, Southall, UB2 5NH. We visited the administrative base and call centre to review relevant information and meet with the service staff.

Out-of-hours (OOH) services are delivered from three primary care centres (PCCs). They are:

  • Harrow OOH PCC: St Marks Hospital opened from 8pm to 11pm Monday to Friday, from 9am to 11pm on a Saturday and from 9am to 10pm on a Sunday. We visited this base.
  • Hillingdon OOH PCC: Hillingdon Hospital opened from 7.30pm to midnight Monday to Friday, from 8am to 11pm on a Saturday and from 9am to 11pm on a Sunday.
  • Hounslow OOH PCC: Skyways Medical Centre opened from 10am to 1pm and 3pm to 7pm on a Saturday and Sunday.

OOH Primary Care Centres are situated in rented spaces and the facilities are managed by the host organisations.

The provider is registered to provide two regulated activities:

  • Treatment of disease, disorder or injury;
  • Transport services, triage and medical advice provided

Overall inspection

Good

Updated 1 November 2019

Our previous comprehensive inspection at the Care UK - North West London Out of Hours (OOH) service on 19 & 20 September 2018 found breaches of regulations relating to the safe delivery of services. The full comprehensive report on the previous inspection can be found on our website at: www.cqc.org.uk/location/1-347527923.

We carried out an announced focused inspection at the Care UK - North West London OOH service on 12 September 2019 to follow up on those breaches of regulations relating to the safe key question.

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? – Good

At this inspection we found:

  • The service had made improvements and they were providing safe care in accordance with the relevant regulations.
  • They had implemented a monitoring system to assure that all self-employed GPs clinical equipment was checked and calibrated to ensure it was safe to use and was in good working order.
  • The service had taken steps to monitor and review the fire safety and the management of legionella at the Hillingdon out of hours primary care centre (OOH PCC) and the Harrow OOH PCC.
  • They had carried out site specific lone worker risk assessments.
  • A risk assessment had been carried out to assess the suitability of the premises at the Harrow OOH PCC and monthly health and safety checks were implemented to ensure continuous monitoring.
  • The service had maintained written records of oxygen cylinder checks.
  • The service had carried out two disease specific audits to ensure effective monitoring of antimicrobial prescribing.
  • Hearing induction loops had been provided at all out of hours primary care centres (OOH PCCs) to improve access to patients with hearing difficulties.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP

Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care