Background to this inspection
Updated
22 December 2023
Rossendale Minor Injury Unit (RMIU) is located on the ground floor of Rossendale Primary Health Care Centre, Bacup Road, Rossendale,BB4 7PL. The health centre shares the premises with other services such as two NHS GP practices, GP extended access services, and services provided by East Lancashire Hospital Trust (ELHT). These include radiology, physiotherapy, treatment room, podiatry and a hospice day unit.
The minor injury unit was previously registered under PDS Medical (Ltd) which was a subsidiary company of Fylde Coast Medical Services (NW) Limited (FCMS). The service is commissioned by Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB) and the service is registered to provide the following regulated activities:
Diagnostic and screening procedures,
Treatment of disease, disorder or injury.
Rossendale Minor Injury Unit is a nurse led walk in centre for people with minor injuries, serving the people of Rossendale and surrounding areas of Pennine Lancashire. The service is open daily from 8am until 8pm including weekends and bank holidays. The unit is accessible by the general public for the treatment of minor injuries, including sprains, strains, fractures, cuts and grazes, bruises and minor head injuries (where no loss of consciousness has occurred), foreign bodies, bites and stings.
This service is a nurse led service that is managed by a clinical manager and staffed with two advanced clinical practitioners, healthcare assistants and a reception team. FCMS provides a comprehensive management structure that provides additional oversight and support to the team at the unit.
There is car parking available with designated disabled car park spaces and the unit is close to main roads with good public transport links.
The registered provider of this service is FCMS (NW) Limited which is a not for profit Social Enterprise Company Limited by Guarantee. FCMS (NW) Limited provide a range of services from several registered locations: They provide:
- 24 hour, 365 day call taking, prioritisation and signposting of patients for unscheduled health or social care needs.
- Primary Care clinical telephone consultations, advice and treatment.
- Face to face primary care clinical consultations, advice and treatment either in a surgery setting or in the home environment.
- Extended access services.
Rossendale Minor Injury Unit is 1 of 10 registered locations. The other locations are:
Morecambe Urgent Treatment Centre
Bay Urgent Care (Morecambe)
Urgent Care Centre Blackpool
Urgent Care Centre Doncaster
Doncaster Same Day Health Centre
Fleetwood Urgent Treatment Centre
West Lancs GP out of hours service
PDS Planned Care Diagnostics
Compass Medical Practice
Updated
22 December 2023
This service is rated as Good overall.
The key questions are rated as:
Are services safe? – Good
Are services effective? – Good
Are services caring? – Good
Are services responsive? – Good
Are services well-led? – Good
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Rossendale Minor Injury Unit (RMIU) on 19 October 2023. This was the first inspection of this urgent treatment centre under this registered provider. Overall, the service is rated good.
At this inspection we found:
- Strong consistent leadership both at Fylde Coast Medical Services (NW) Limited (FCMS) organisational level and locally at RMIU facilitated the organisation’s quality improvement strategy. The primary objective of the service was to deliver a safe, effective and accessible service to people living in the local community.
- A comprehensive cycle of continuous quality improvement with supporting business plans was underpinned by the service’s strategy and this reflected the FCMS’s vision and values.
- All staff were considered a valued resource and the clinical manager, supported by FCMS, invested training, development and support to ensure each team member delivered the best service they could.
- Staff were positive about working at the service and for the organisations. They told us they were clear of their role and responsibilities. Training programmes and supportive performance monitoring was in place to assist staff to deliver safe care to patients.
- There were clearly defined and embedded systems to minimise risks to patient safety. Incidents, complaints and patient feedback were viewed as opportunities to learn and to improve processes.
- Clinical records provided evidence that care and treatment was provided safely and effectively.
- Systems to safeguard patients were robust and included a specific induction training package in safeguarding.
- Quality and performance was routinely monitored for contract monitoring requirements and records indicated that the service was performing well against key performance indicators.
We saw areas of outstanding practice. These included:
- Collaborative working with local primary care networks (PCNs) to implement a protocol of medicine review by a clinical pharmacist for patients identified by RMIU as being at risk of increased falls due in part to the types of medicines they were prescribed.
- A range of standard operating procedures had been agreed with different health care providers which ensured patients attending RMIU whose care and treatment needs could not be met there had an agreed pathway to access the most appropriate care.
- Outreach work had been undertaken with local schools and patient participation groups to raise awareness of the services provided by RMIU.
Dr Sean O’Kelly
BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA
Chief Inspector of Hospitals and Interim Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services