The Care Quality Commission
  • Doctor
  • GP practice

Archived: Brighton Homeless Healthcare

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

Morley Street, Brighton, East Sussex, BN2 9DH (01273) 310350

Provided and run by:
Chilvers & McCrea Limited

Important: The provider of this service changed. See new profile

All Inspections

12 May 2015

During a routine inspection

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Brighton Homeless Healthcare on 12th May 2015. Overall the practice is rated as good.

Specifically, we found the practice to be good for providing safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led services. It was also good for providing services for the care of all the population groups and we saw an element of outstanding practice in relation to care of people in vulnerable circumstances who may have poor access to primary care.

Our key findings across all the areas we inspected were as follows:

  • Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns, and to report incidents and near misses. Information about safety was recorded, monitored, appropriately reviewed and addressed.
  • Risks to patients were assessed and well managed, with the exception of those relating to legionella re-inspection and undertaking regular fire drills.
  • Patients’ needs were assessed and care was planned and delivered following best practice guidance. Staff had received training appropriate to their roles and any further training needs had been identified and planned.
  • Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.
  • Information about services and how to complain was available and easy to understand.
  • Patients said they found it easy to make an appointment with a named GP and that there was continuity of care, with urgent appointments available the same day.
  • The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
  • There was a clear leadership structure and staff felt supported by management. The practice proactively sought feedback from staff and patients, which it acted on.

We saw one area of outstanding practice:

  • The practice held multidisciplinary team meetings weekly at the local hospital and fortnightly with local homeless hostels to discuss patients with complex needs. For example, those with multiple long term conditions, mental health problems, those with end of life care needs or children on the at risk register).

However there were areas of practice where the provider needs to make improvements.

The provider should;

  • Should ensure risk assessments and action plans are followed such as the frequency of legionella inspection.
  • Ensure regular fire drills are undertaken.
  • Ensure access to the practice is within the contractual opening times of 8am to 6.30pm.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

17 September 2014

During an inspection in response to concerns

We inspected Brighton Homeless Healthcare due to concerns raised. Although the initial concerns were not substantiated during the visit we found the provider was non-compliant with requirements relating to workers and supporting staff.

Patients we spoke with thought very highly of the service provided and of the staff supporting them. We were able to view patient comments left at the practice which were very positive about the staff. During the inspection we were able to see the practice thought of innovative ways to engage the homeless population.

In this report the name of a registered manager appears who was not in post and not managing the regulated activities at this location at the time of the inspection. The name appears because they were still the Registered Manager on our register at the time. We have confirmed that the provider knows the action to take in these circumstances.

We viewed staff recruitment files and found these did not contain the relevant information required under the regulations of the Health and Social Care Act 2008. The provider was unable to provide evidence that the relevant recruitment checks had taken place for a temporary member of administration staff.

Staff told us they felt supported by the practice. However, training the provider required staff to undertake was not up to date. We were only able to see evidence of one member of staff's appraisal. Staff told us that supervision was informal and that practice meetings allowed them to talk through issues or concerns. However, we were unable to see evidence of these meetings taking place. We were also unable to see evidence that policies and procedures had been read by staff to ensure they were working to the practice requirements or best practice.