International SOS (Medical Services) UK Limited

Updated 12 July 2019

Iqarus Teesside, Wallace House, Falcon Court, Preston Farm Industrial Estate, Stockton On Tees, Cleveland,TS18 3TX is an occupational health service providing a range of services such as statutory medicals for the oil and gas industries, seafarers, diving, travel health, drug and alcohol testing and onsite medical services. All regulated activity is currently delivered from this one, registered location. The head office for the service is based in Aberdeen who provide continual support and training across the whole organisation.

The service provides appointments Monday – Thursday 0900 – 1700 and Friday 0830 – 1630. One of the nurses visits a company offsite when required providing occupational health services.

There are currently; three part-time doctors working a total of  42.5hours over 5 days, (all doctors are contractors and not employed directly by Iqarus), a full time senior occupational health nurse (OHN), a part time OHN, a clinic manager, two full time receptionists/administrators and a part-time administrator. In addition to this, there are staff based in Aberdeen supporting the Teesside service for example a clinical director, senior nurses, human resources team and health and safety lead.

The Iqarus Teesside website address www.iqarus.com details a comprehensive list of services provided by the organisation and its vision.

How we inspected this service

Before the inspection we reviewed notifications that came into our organisation. We asked the provider to send us certain information beforehand which included a list of its clinicians’ registration with the General Medical Council and Nursing and Midwifery Council.

The methods that were used included interviewing staff, observations and review of documents.

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 12 July 2019

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

Iqarus Teesside offers provides remote medical support services to the energy industry and occupational health service across the UK. It is owned by Abermed Limited part of an international organisation. The head office is based in Aberdeen. The service provides a range of occupational health services such as health surveillance, psychotherapy support, statutory medicals for the oil and gas industries, seafarers, diving, travel health, drug and alcohol testing and onsite medical services.

This service is registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 in respect of the provision of advice or treatment by, or under the supervision of, a medical practitioner, including the prescribing of medicines.

The clinic manager is the registered manager. 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.

We provided CQC comment cards and asked clients to complete these. We saw that nine people who were clients of the service provided feedback about the service. All nine of these comment cards were positive and described how all staff were polite, professional, friendly, helpful and efficient.

Our key findings were:

We rated the service as good for providing safe and effective services because:

• The service provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm.
• Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs.

• There was an open and transparent approach to safety and an effective system in place for reporting and recording incidents.
• Staff maintained the necessary skills and competence to support the needs of patients.
• Staff were up to date with current guidelines and were led by a proactive management team.
• Staff were professional, caring, competent and put patients at their ease.
• The provider was aware of, and complied with, the requirements of the Duty of Candour.

There were areas where the provider could make improvements and should:

• Review and improve infection control monitoring.
• Review and improve the recruitment process.
• Review and improve the immunisation of staff

We saw the following outstanding practice:

• Services were tailored to meet the needs of individual patients and the industries they worked in. They were delivered in a flexible way that ensured choice and continuity of care.
• There were processes in place for clinicians in Aberdeen to review referrals and the management of complex patients undertaken in Teesside providing opportunity to effectively improve management. In return the clinicians in Teesside provided the same for the Aberdeen clinicians.

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