• Doctor
  • Urgent care service or mobile doctor

Archived: Bromley Urgent Care Centre

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

Princess Royal University Hospital, Farnborough Common, Orpington, Kent, BR6 8ND

Provided and run by:
Greenbrook Healthcare (Hounslow) Limited

Latest inspection summary

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Background to this inspection

Updated 28 December 2017

Bromley Urgent Care Centre is commissioned to provide an urgent care service to Orpington and the surrounding area in the London Borough of Bromley. Although based in the Bromley area, the urgent care service is available to both local residents and to patients who might work in the local area.

The service operates from Princess Royal University Hospital, Farnborough Common, Orpington, London, BR6 8ND. The service is on one level and is accessible to those with poor mobility. The service is co-located with the accident and emergency department of Princess Royal University Hospital.

The service is provided by Greenbrook Healthcare (Hounslow) Limited. They are the registered provider for 12 GP, Urgent Care and Out of Hours services. The provider provides centralised governance for its services which are co-ordinated locally by service managers and senior clinicians. The urgent care centre provides triage to the accident and emergency department except where patients arrive with an emergency presentation or in an ambulance. A streaming nurse would review all patients and determine whether the patient needed to be seen in the urgent care centre or by the accident and emergency department of the hospital in which the service is based. On an annual basis approximately 63,000 patients attend the urgent care centre. On site, the service is led by a service manager, a lead GP and a lead nurse who have oversight of the urgent care centre. The service employs doctors, nurses and streaming nurses (who triage patients and determine whether the patient needs to be seen by a doctor or a nurse). The majority of GPs working at the service are bank staff (those who are retained on a list by the provider and who work across all of their sites). Most nursing staff and reception staff at the service are employed directly by the provider. The urgent care service is open 24 hours a day. Patients may contact the urgent care service in advance of attendance but dedicated appointment times are not offered.

Overall inspection

Good

Updated 28 December 2017

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Bromley Urgent Care Centre on 16 February 2017. The overall rating for the practice was good. However, a breach of regulation 12(1) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 was identified, and we rated the practice as requires improvement for providing safe services. The full comprehensive inspection report published June 2017 can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Bromley Urgent Care Centre on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

This inspection was a desk-based follow up inspection carried out on 13 December 2017 to confirm that the practice had carried out their plan to meet the legal requirements in relation to the breaches in regulations that we identified in our previous inspection on 16 February 2017. This report covers our findings in relation to those requirements.

The practice is rated as good for providing safe services.

Our key findings were as follows:

  • The service had developed effective systems and processes to ensure safe care and treatment including medicines management in relation to vaccine storage.

  • The service had updated their policies and documents in relation to cold chain (a system of storing medicines/vaccines at recommended temperatures from the point of manufacture to the point of use) and medicine management.

  • The service conducted monthly clinical governance meetings where they discussed compliance in the management of the monitoring of the vaccine refrigerator.

  • The service recorded vaccine refrigerator temperatures daily.

  • The service conducted a monthly vaccine refrigerator audit.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP 

Chief Inspector of General Practice