Archived: i-HEART 365 Service - Out of Hours Service

Updated 17 January 2019

Barnsley Healthcare Federation (BHF) CIC is registered with the Care Quality Commission to provide a GP out-of-hours (OOH) service to 250,000 people living in and around the Barnsley area.

The service is contracted by the NHS Barnsley clinical commissioning group (CCG) to provide OOH primary medical services to registered patients and those requiring immediate and necessary treatment in Barnsley and the surrounding area when GP practices are closed. This includes overnight, during weekends, bank holidays and when GP practices are closed for training.

Most patients access the out-of-hours service by calling their own GP and the call is automatically diverted to the NHS 111 service or by ringing NHS 111 directly. Patients who contact the service may be provided with advice, receive a telephone consultation, or an appointment or a home visit, depending on their needs. The service is open seven days a week (including bank holidays) from 6.30pm to 8am each day and is also open from 6.30pm on Friday to 8am Monday.

The service employs both male and female GP’s, nursing staff, clinical advisors, and qualified healthcare professionals. The clinicians are supported by receptionists, drivers and a management team who are responsible for the day-to-day running of the service.

The service is based at Oaks Park Medical centre, which is also the provider head office, and  face to face appointments are offered to patients at the GP out-of-hours clinic at Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust site, Gawber Road, Barnsley,  S75 2EP.

Barnsley Healthcare Federation CIC has other locations registered with the Commission which include an extended hours access service and GP practices.

Updated 17 January 2019

This service is rated as Good overall. (Previous inspection February 2018 - Inadequate)

The key questions now 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 i-Heart 365 Service – Out of Hours service on 14, 16 and 17 November 2018 to follow up on breaches of regulations and inspect a service in special measures. 

We previously carried out an announced comprehensive inspection of the service on 13 and 14 February 2018. Our overall rating for the service was inadequate and inadequate for providing safe, effective, responsive and well-led services and good for caring. We served warning notices for breaches in relation to Regulation 16: Receiving and acting on complaints and Regulation 18: Staffing. 

At this inspection we found:

• The service had reviewed the systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. When they did happen, the service learned from them and improved their processes.
• The service introduced systems to review the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided. It ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence- based guidelines.
• Staff involved and treated people with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
• Patients were able to access care and treatment from the service within an appropriate timescale for their needs.

We saw one area of outstanding practice:

• The provider had reviewed the identification and management of sepsis across all its services and routinely recorded patient observations in the face to face settings to calculate early warning scores. They had been proactive by sharing and promoting this work with other organisations across healthcare pathways and had contributed to the review of external incidents relating to sepsis led by other organisations.

​I am taking this service out of special measures. This recognises the significant improvements made to the quality of care provided by the service.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP

Chief Inspector of General Practice