Archived: Care UK - North Central London

Updated 7 May 2014

Harmoni – NCL is the provider of out of hours GP services for the boroughs of Camden and Islington. The services include the provision of telephone medical advice to callers, face to face consultations with a doctor at two bases, in the Bloomsbury Building at St Pancras Hospital and at Whittington Hospital. In some cases callers are visited by a doctor at home. The service covers approximately 77 GP practices and provides advice and treatment to a population of over 0.4 million patients.

The Harmoni- North Central London location reports to the Camden Clinical Commissioning group.

Harmoni is a wholly owned subsidiary of Care UK and the core business is the delivery of out of hours care and NHS 111 services.

Updated 7 May 2014

Harmoni – North Central London (NCL) (now Care UK - North Central London) is the provider of out of hours GP services for the boroughs of Camden and Islington. The services include the provision of telephone medical advice to callers, face to face consultations with a doctor at two bases, in the Bloomsbury Building at St Pancras Hospital and at Whittington Hospital. In some cases callers are visited by a doctor at home. The service covers approximately 77 GP practices and provides advice and treatment to a population of over 0.4 million patients.

We carried out the inspection as part of our new inspection programme to test our approach going forward. The inspection team included the lead CQC inspector, a GP, a second CQC inspector, two bank inspectors and an expert-by-experience.

Overall, we found Harmoni – NCL provided care that was safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led. We saw there were robust systems in place to ensure the safety of patients when they accessed the service. We found learning from untoward incidents. We found learning from untoward incidents had taken place. We saw changes to practice had occurred and these continued to be monitored.

The provider had taken steps to ensure that all staff underwent a robust recruitment, selection and induction process. These systems meant patients could be assured of the doctors’ suitability to care for them.

We found the service was effective in meeting patient needs. There was an electronic system to ensure that patient information was promptly shared with each patient’s own GP. This meant continuity of care was provided.

Patients we spoke with told us they were happy with the care and treatment they received and felt safe. They told us staff had been kind and caring and we observed patients being treated with respect whilst their dignity and confidentiality was maintained.

There were effective systems in place to assure the quality of the service. This included a specific role of Clinical Navigator who was a clinician, to support the doctors on duty and address problems when they arose.

There was evidence of collaborative working between the provider and other healthcare and social care agencies which ensured patients received the best outcomes in the shortest possible time.