Archived: Care UK - Warwickshire

Updated 11 June 2015

Care UK Warwickshire provides out-of-hours primary medical services across Warwickshire when GP practices are closed. The out-of-hours service covers a population of approximately 540,000 people across the county of Warwickshire. The area covered incorporates three Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) areas, South Warwickshire, North Warwickshire and Coventry and Rugby. South Warwickshire CCG is the lead commissioner for this out-of-hours service.

The out-of-hours service is provided across five primary care centres located at George Eliot Hospital in Nuneaton, Warwick Hospital and St Cross Hospital in Rugby, which are open seven days per week. The Ellen Badger Hospital in Shipston and Trinity Court Surgery in Stratford upon Avon are open at weekends. The administrative base for Care UK Warwickshire is located at the George Eliot

Hospital. Most patients access the out-of-hours service via the NHS 111 telephone service. Patients may be seen by a clinician at one of the primary care centres, receive a telephone consultation or a home visit, depending on their needs. Patients can also access the primary care centres as a walk-in patient or be referred from the hospital accident and emergency departments.

Updated 11 June 2015

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out a comprehensive inspection of Care UK Warwickshire on 6 March 2015. Overall this out-of-hours service is rated as good. Specifically we found this provider to be good for providing safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led services.

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

• The out-of-hours service provided safe care and treatment. Care UK Warwickshire had procedures in place which identified and minimised risks to patients who used the service.
• Staff delivered safe care and treatment and received appropriate training and supervision to enable them to do so.
• The out-of-hours service was responsive to patients’ needs. It provided face-to-face consultations, telephone consultations and home visits depending on the needs of patients.
• The out-of-hours service had procedures in place to monitor the effectiveness of its patient care and treatment. This was carried out in a consistent way which ensured the performance of the out-of-hours service was closely monitored. When improvements were needed these were identified and steps were taken to make improvements.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice