Archived: Rossendale Minor Injury Unit

Updated 14 November 2017

Rossendale Minor Injury Unit is located on the ground floor of Rossendale Primary Health Care Centre (Baccup Road, Rawtenstall, BB4 7PL). The unit shares the premises with other services such as GP practices, out-patient physiotherapy, Rossendale Hospice, podiatry, x-ray, a treatment room and a pharmacy. The premises includes ample parking space for patients, with designated disabled spaces, and is serviced by main roads with good public transport links.

The minor injury unit has been run by the provider PDS Medical (Ltd) since April 2015, and sits within the company’s urgent care business unit. PDS Medical (Ltd) is a subsidiary company of Fylde Coast Medical Services Ltd, which is a not for profit social enterprise. The organisation provides a range of other planned care, urgent care and dental services across locations throughout the North of England.

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 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.

The service is open from 8am until 8pm, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

The service is staffed by two emergency nurse practitioners, an emergency care practitioner, a physiotherapist, four healthcare assistants (who also worked as receptionists for some of the time) and two reception staff. The service is managed by the service manager. The service has been engaged in recent recruitment activity, and an additional member of nursing staff is due to commence employment at the unit two working days after our inspection visit.

Three of the clinicians are qualified non-medical prescribers.

The staff at the unit are supported by a broader management structure within the provider organisation.

Updated 14 November 2017

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Rossendale Minor Injuries Unit on 28 September 2017. Overall the service is rated as good.

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

• Patients’ care needs were assessed and delivered in a timely way according to need. The service was meeting the Clinical Commissioning Group’s Local Quality Requirements.
• There was a system in place for recording, reporting and learning from significant events. While we saw that action was taken to improve processes following analysis of documented significant events, the cascade of feedback to staff was not always efficient.
• Risks to patients were assessed and well managed, although in some cases further documentation was needed in order to provide a thorough audit trail to show that required actions had been completed.
• Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance. Staff had been trained to provide them with the skills, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care and treatment.
• There was a system in place that enabled staff access to patient records, and the out of hours staff provided other services, for example the local GP and hospital, with information following contact with patients as was appropriate.
• Patient feedback we received was wholly positive about their experiences accessing the service. They said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.
• Information about services and how to complain was available and easy to understand. Improvements were made to the quality of care as a result of complaints and concerns.
• The service worked proactively with other organisations and providers to develop services that supported alternatives to hospital admission where appropriate and improved the patient experience.
• The service had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
• There was a clear leadership structure and staff felt supported by management. The service proactively sought feedback from staff and patients, which it acted on.
• The provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the duty of candour.

The areas where the provider should make improvement are:

• Continue to embed the new meeting framework to enable shared discussion of significant event analysis (SEAs), peer review and quality improvement.

• Complete and document a formal infection prevention and control audit of the environment in order to effectively monitor compliance with relevant protocols.

• Second cycle clinical audits should be completed to monitor the effectiveness of improvements made to care and treatment practices.

• The planned programme of staff appraisals should be completed.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice