• Doctor
  • Independent doctor

Ashby Clinic Also known as Safecare Network Limited

Overall: Requires improvement read more about inspection ratings

Collum Lane, Scunthorpe, DN16 2SZ

Provided and run by:
Safecare Network Limited

Latest inspection summary

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Background to this inspection

Updated 6 January 2023

The provider, Safe Care Network Limited, is a not for profit GP Federation of 19 GP practices based in North Lincolnshire covering approximately 170,000. They manage services from the location based at:

Ashby Clinic

Collum Lane

Scunthorpe

DN16 2SZ

Website: safecarenetwork.co.uk

The services comprise of:

1. Community Response Team

Global House

Kingsway

Scunthorpe

DN17 1AJ

A GP service which provides advisory services to community health teams and the ambulance service: 8am to 8pm, 7 days a week.

This service was visited as part of the inspection.

2. GP out of hours service

Ashby Turn Practice

The Link

Ashby

Scunthorpe

DN16 2UT

Out of hours GP services provided from Ashby Turn Primary Care Centre 6.30pm - 8am weekdays and 24 hours at weekends and bank holidays.

The GP Out of Hours Service is for patients residing in or visiting North Lincolnshire, who are experiencing a medical problem that cannot reasonably be expected to wait for the next opportunity to contact their own practice, in-hours.

This service was visited as part of the inspection.

3. Specialist assessment for the frail and elderly (SAFE)

Safecare was commissioned by North Lincolnshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) to run the SAFE Service in August 2018. This is an innovative service designed to improve the wellbeing of the North Lincolnshire’s elderly and frail residents by reviewing their physical, psychological, social and environmental needs holistically. One-off holistic frailty assessments are completed by a GP or a Geriatrician. Assessments are usually provided to patients at home or at Ashby Clinic, Scunthorpe if the patient can attend. The service is open 8.30am - 6pm.

This service was visited as part of the inspection.

4. Urgent Care Service

Urgent care services are delivered from the accident and emergency departments in Scunthorpe General Hospital and the Diana Princess of Wales Hospital, Grimsby between 8am and 8pm. All appointments are face to face and patients are triaged and booked into the service by accident and emergency staff.

The Scunthorpe service was visited as part of the inspection and we spoke to Grimsby staff by telephone.

5. The service manages a vaccination site for COVID19 vaccines until March 2023. This service is based at the Ironstone centre, West Street, Scunthorpe. This service was not inspected.

6. They also provide administrative rota management for practices extended hours for one Primary Care Network based in Ashby Clinic. This service was not inspected.

The service was registered to provide the following regulated activities on 31 January 2018:

Diagnostic and screening

Treatment of disease and disorder

How we inspected this service

We conducted site visits at Ashby clinic, Scunthorpe Hospital, Global House and Ashby Turn Primary Care centre to inspect the out of hours, urgent care, community response and SAFE services.

During the inspection we spoke with people using the service, interviewed staff and reviewed 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.

Overall inspection

Requires improvement

Updated 6 January 2023

This service is rated as Requires improvement overall.

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? – Requires improvement

Are services effective? – Good

Are services caring? – Good

Are services responsive? – Good

Are services well-led? – Requires improvement

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Ashby Clinic as part of our inspection schedule as this is a new provider.

Safecare Network Limited (Ltd) is a not-for-profit Federation of 19 North Lincolnshire GP practices, covering approximately 170,000 patients. They provide GP advisory services to community health teams and the ambulance service, specialist assessment for frail and elderly patients, urgent care services delivered from the emergency department in Scunthorpe General Hospital and Diana Princess of Wales hospital Grimsby and out of hours GP services, provided from Ashby Turn primary care centre. They also manage a COVID19 vaccination site at the Ironstone Centre in Scunthorpe and undertake rota management for extended hours services for the Primary Care Network.

The Clinical Director of the provider, Safecare Network Ltd. 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 only received feedback about the service from one patient who was extremely positive. We spoke with staff from other organisations who worked with each of the different services and all were positive about the staff and services provided and felt these made a difference to patients.

Our key findings were:

  • The service didn’t always provide care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm as systems for recruitment and oversight of health and safety matters was not effective.
  • Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs.
  • Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
  • Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.
  • The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centre care but there was a lack of management oversight relating to risk management.

The areas where the provider must make improvements as they are in breach of regulations are:

  • Ensure care and treatment is provided in a safe way to patients.
  • Ensure recruitment procedures are established and operated effectively to ensure only fit and proper persons are employed.

(Please see the specific details on action required at the end of this report).

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

  • Take action to gain assurance chaperone training has been completed by staff who are providing this service.
  • Take action to improve clinical peer review of consultation records.
  • Involve staff in the development and implementation of the vison and strategy.

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

Chief Inspector of Hospitals and Interim Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services