Ironstone Centre

Updated 26 November 2021

The provider is Virgin Care East Riding LLP. The location, Ironstone Centre, provides community dermatology services for patients in North and North East Lincolnshire. This is an NHS secondary care service and access is via GP referral.

Ironstone Centre is registered to provide services from West Street Scunthorpe DN15 6HX

under the following regulated activities:

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

The service is managed from the Ironstone Centre, Scunthorpe with satellite locations as follows:

Cromwell Primary Care Centre, Grimsby, providing minor surgical procedures and consultations Monday to Friday.

Birkwood Medical Centre, Grimsby - providing minor operations, intermediate (day case) surgical procedures and nurse-led wound care clinics on a Monday and Tuesday.

Additionally, services have been delivered at satellite locations as follows but these are closed currently due to the pandemic.

Central Surgery, Barton,

Roxton Practice, Immingham

Riverside Surgery, Brigg,

Freshney Green, Grimsby

The service is situated within a multi-functional community health centre part of which is rented by the provider including a patient waiting room and consulting rooms on the first floor accessible by stairs or a lift. There is a public car park outside the practice.

The service is open from 8am until 6pm Monday to Friday or by appointment at other times.

How we inspected this service

During our visit we:

• Spoke with staff including the business unit head, clinical lead, service manager and clinical staff.
• Reviewed information provided to us electronically.
• Completed a site visit at the main site at the Ironstone Centre.
  
  

To get to the heart of patients’ experiences of care and treatment, we always ask the following five questions:

• Is it safe?
• Is it effective?
• Is it caring?
• Is it responsive to people’s needs?
• Is it well-led?

These questions therefore formed the framework for the areas we looked at during the inspection.

Updated 26 November 2021

This service is rated as Good overall.

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? – Good

Are services effective? – Good

Are services caring? – Good

Are services responsive? – Good

Are services well-led? – Good

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Ironstone Centre as part of our inspection schedule and in response to concerns. CQC had received notifications of significant incidents and whistleblowing concerns. CQC had been assured the provider had put systems in place to improve in response to the incidents and whistleblowing concerns and we looked at the effectiveness of these systems during this inspection.

The location, Ironstone centre, provides community dermatology services for patients in North and North East Lincolnshire. This is an NHS secondary care service and access is via GP referral.

At the time of the inspection the service did not have a registered manager but evidence an application for this role had been submitted to CQC was provided after the inspection. A registered manager is a person who is registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

Our key findings were:

• The provider had implemented improvements to ensure care was provided in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm.
• Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs.
• Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
• The practice adjusted how it delivered services to meet the needs of patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.
• The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centre care. However, we found some staff did not feel communication from management and between teams was effective leading to inconsistent understanding of some processes.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Review provision of sepsis awareness training.
• Review the medical emergency policy to ensure all potential risks are considered.
• Improve access by telephone and implement plans for the new telephone system.
• Review and improve communication with staff relating to sharing learning from incidents and between clinical and administration teams.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP
Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care