North Street Medical Centre

Updated 4 September 2018

The provider of the service is Havering Health Ltd. This is a group of local GP practices who have agreed to work together to offer a health service provided by clinicians with expertise in, understanding of, and commitment to their local communities. Havering Health Ltd has five directors who are all local GPs with practices in Havering. Havering Health Ltd contracted with BHR GP solutions a separate company that provides the call centre the extended access primary care hub.

The service is commissioned by the Local Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) for the residents of Havering who are registered with a local GP practice. It is commissioned for patients who are assessed as having an urgent primary care need. To support NHS 111, A&E, GP practices and urgent care centres. It does not provide a service for patients who required on going treatment for long-term conditions, palliative care, and maternity care.

The call handling and Havering Health management team are based at CEME Innovations Centre, Marsh way, Rainham Essex RM13 8EU. This is operated by a business manager and assistant, a rota manager,  two supervisors and a team of call handlers. Havering Health Ltd uses a team of 20 locum doctors to cover the service.

The extended access service is located at North Street Medical Centre, 274 North Street, Romford, Essex, RM1 4QJ.

• The service operated from Monday to Friday from 6:30pm to 10pm. Saturday and Sunday 8am to 8pm.

• The call handlers book appointments from Monday to Friday from 2pm to 9pm and Saturday 9am to 5pm and Sunday 9am to 4pm.

The provider Havering Health Ltd is registered with the CQC to provide the regulated activities, family planning, treatment of disease, disorder and injury and diagnostic and screening procedures.

Updated 4 September 2018

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 North Street Medical Centre as part of our inspection programme.

At this inspection we found:

• The leaders of Havering Health Ltd had the experience, capacity and skills to deliver the service strategy and address risks to it.
• Staff felt respected, supported, and valued. They were proud to work for the service.

• The service had good systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen.

• The provider had systems in place to safeguard children and vulnerable adults from abuse.

• The service routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided. It ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence- based guidelines.

• Patients were able to access care and treatment from the service within an appropriate timescale for their needs.

• Staff had the skills, knowledge and experience to carry out their roles.

• The service had systems for sharing information with staff and other agencies to enable them to deliver safe care and treatment. However, the service did not have access to all of the patient’s medical records. The Clinical Commissioning Group confirmed that access to all patient notes was out of the services control. Although, recently more GP practices had moved to one computer software system and the service was looking at ways of funding this system.

• The service took complaints and concerns seriously and responded to them appropriately to improve the quality of care.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• The provider should review the policies and standard operating procedures to ensure that they fully reflect the services practices and sites.

• The provider should continue to review the computer software used to enable the service to have access to the GP practice patient notes.

• The provider should seek written assurance from the locum GP that their medical indemnity is correct for the service.

• The provider should have an agreement in place for locum GPs about their responsibilities whilst working for the service.

• The provider should consider the use of interpretation services to aid staff at the call centre.

• The provider should review the appraisal system to ensure it includes all call handlers.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice