Archived: Frimley Park Hospital Also known as Frimley Primary Care Service

Updated 29 November 2017

The Frimley Primary Health Care Service is run by North Hampshire Urgent Care (NHUC) which is a not for profit, community benefit society, run by a membership. North Hampshire Urgent Care’s head office is based at:

The Meads Business Centre, 19 Kingsmead, Farnborough, Hants GU14 7SR

NHUC also runs another service from the same head office based at Basingstoke Hospital, which is the subject of a separate report. The two locations have a total catchment of about 640,000 patients.

Frimley Primary Care Centre is located in the out patients department of:

Frimley Park Hospital, Portsmouth Rd, Frimley, Camberley GU16 7UJ

The service sees approximately 43,000 primary care patients per year and is open from 6.30pm to 8am Monday to Friday and 24 hours a day on Saturdays, Sundays and bank holidays. Approximately 41% of patients receive self-care advice over the phone, 51% are seen at the primary care centre and 8% receive visits at their home. The service is commissioned by three clinical commissioning groups (CCGs). These are North East Hampshire; Farnham and Surrey Heath; and Ascot and Bracknell CCGs.

Patients can access the service via the NHS 111 service.

NHUC employs a total of 185 staff across the Frimley Park and Basingstoke locations including 60 nurses, 38 drivers and 25 receptionists. GPs are self-employed and therefore not included in the employee numbers.

The clinical workforce is made up almost entirely of local GPs and nurses and there is a low use of locum staff. Of the nursing staff 74% are advanced nurse practitioners with prescribing rights.

Two medical directors, one GP elected to the NHUC council, a chief nurse and lead nurse all work at the Frimley service clinically as well as at a senior level behind the scenes.

Updated 29 November 2017

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

This service is rated as Good overall. (Previous inspection 21 February 2017 to 23 February 2017 – Good)

The key questions that we looked at on this occasion were rated as:

Are services safe? – Good

We carried out an announced focused inspection at Frimley Primary Care Service on 7 November 2017 to follow up on breaches of regulations identified at the previous inspection of 21 February 2017 to 23 February 2017. We looked at aspects of the safe domain.

The full comprehensive report on the 21 February 2017 to 23 February 2017 inspection can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Frimley Primary Care Service on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

At our inspection of 21 February 2017 to 23 February 2017, we found that:

• Medicines were not always provided to patients with an appropriate patient information leaflet.

• Processes in place for checking medicines, including those held at the base and in the out of hours vehicles were not sufficient to ensure that stock levels were appropriate.

• Contrary to guidelines some medicines supplies held in vehicles used for visiting patients had been split leaving only a few tablets inside the box and fewer than the number stated on the box.

• Lockable boxes held in each vehicle containing prescriptions for stock medicines and all medical records were only emptied every few days.

• Some boxes held in the out of hours vehicles for the safe storage and disposal of used sharps were being used longer than best practice guidelines and were incompletely labelled.

At this inspection we found that:

• All patients received an appropriate patient information leaflet when medicines were dispensed to them.

• A system of daily stock checks had been introduced that ensured that there were appropriate stocks of medicines stored at the base and available for the vehicles.

• Systems had been introduced to ensure that small quantities of medicines could be dispensed to patients and accurately recorded without splitting boxes containing full courses of medicines.

• The effectiveness of the new systems had been audited by the service.

• Lockable boxes in each vehicle containing prescriptions for stock medicines and all medical records were now emptied daily.

• Sharps boxes were being correctly used and labelled.

  Additionally we saw that:

• The service had reviewed the practice of clinicians providing their own personal equipment and was going to provide all the equipment themselves.

• Vehicle checklists had been revised and the levels of oxygen in the oxygen canisters held in the vehicles were checked daily.

• The complaints system had been revised, complaints were correctly identified and copies of communications were retained for an appropriate period of time.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGPChief Inspector of General Practice