Archived: Brook Southwark

Updated 22 May 2017

Brook Southwark provides confidential sexual health services, support and advice to young people under the age of 25.

Brook Southwark is recognised as a level 2 contraception and sexual health service (CASH). The Department of Health’s National Strategy for Sexual Health and HIV for England 2001 set out what services should provide at each recognised level. As a level 2 service Brook Southwark provides planned contraception, emergency contraception, and condom distribution. They also provide screening and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, pregnancy testing, termination of pregnancy referrals and counselling.

Brook also provide a sex and relationship education and training programme to young people and professionals engaged in working with young people.

The service also provides support, guidance and advice to young people who are transitioning to adult services for their ongoing sexual health and contraceptive needs.

The service operates from a clinic near to Elephant and Castle, and has clinic services operating four days a week on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. The clinic is open from 1pm to 6pm on weekdays and 1pm to 4pm on Saturdays.

There were six permanent staff members, including the nurse manager, manager and receptionists. All of the nurses and clinical support workers (CSW)s were employed on a locum basis from a pool of staff.

Updated 22 May 2017

Brook Southwark is part of Brook Young People, which provides sexual health services, support, and advice to young people under the age of 25. Brook Southwark (Brook

Young People) is the registered provider for Brook Southwark. The service is jointly funded by the London Borough of Lambeth and the London Borough of Southwark.

They provide the following services:

• Caring for adults under 65 years of age;

• Caring for children up to 18 years of age;

They provide the following regulated activities:

• Family planning;

• Treatment of disease, disorder or injury;

• Diagnostic and screening procedures;

As part of the inspection, we spoke with young people attending clinics, spoke with staff working at the service, and viewed documentation of client care and treatment records.

Our findings are as follows:

• The service had strong safeguarding systems in place to protect children and young adults. Staff were able to identify and report safeguarding concerns quickly and there was good collaborate working with local support services to ensure children and young adults received the right care. Care and treatment was based on national guidelines and the service participated in national and local audits, using outcomes to improve the quality of their service. Staff supported each other in making safeguarding decisions and took individual responsibility for the safeguarding referrals that they made.

• The service placed the safety and wellbeing of patients at the forefront of all its activities. Safety arrangements supported the delivery of services in a way which minimised risks to the safety of patients. This included training of staff, staffing levels, incident reporting and investigation processes, as well as medicines optimisation. In addition, equipment and the environment was managed safely and in accordance with infection prevention and control practices.

• Medicines were managed well and good patient group directives were in place.

• Records were clear, accurate and up-to-date. They were securely stored to protect patient confidentiality.

• Staff had a clear understanding of consent and applied Gillick and Fraser guidelines appropriately for service users under the age of 16.

• Clinic times were designed to serve the needs of the greatest number of young people.

• There was a text queue system to address service user concerns regarding waiting times.

• Young people were proactively involved in the service, including at Board level, and at a local level through consultations, for example as to the décor of the waiting room.

We saw examples of outstanding practice:

• Safeguarding knowledge and practice at the service was outstanding. In the way that staff ensured that relevant safeguarding information was obtained from service users, and was acted on appropriately and the way thatthe leadership ensured staff were supported in doing so.

However:

• Staffing issues meant that over the reporting period approximately 25% of clinics had been cancelled. Of those, the majority of cancelled clinics were on Saturdays. We were told that the clinic was open in the afternoons as this was the time most convenient for young people to attend, with the majority attending on their way home from school, college or work.