Farnham Hospital and Centre for Health

Updated 6 April 2023

HCRG Care Group provides community adults services across Surrey Heath and North East Hants and Farnham in partnership with the NHS and the local authorities. After more than 10 years as part of the Virgin Group, Virgin Care rebranded as HCRG Care Services Limited in 2021 and was acquired by Twenty20 Capital.

The service registered with the Care Quality Commission in 2012.

They are registered to provide the following regulated activities:

• Treatment of disease, disorder or injury
• Nursing care.

Community health services for adults. The community health services for adults operates across

Surrey Heath and North East Hants and Farnham. They provide care and treatment for patients in their own homes and in clinics.

The teams at Farnham Hospital and Centre for Health included:

• General outpatients service (subcontract with the NHS trust), Diagnostic and Treatment centre (DATC), podiatry clinic, GP Direct Access Physio, Speech and Language Therapy, in-patient therapy (subcontract with the NHS trust), and specialist nurses including continence and tissue viability nurses operated Mondays to Fridays between 8am to 5pm. The community nursing teams operated 24 hours a day seven days a week service, while the intermediate care teams operated a 12 hour shift between the hours of 8am to 8pm.

Other sites where the service operated from included:

• Camberley Health Centre on Frimley Road, Camberley hosted Surrey Heath Single Point of Access (SPA), community nursing, intermediate care and diabetes team. We were informed at the time of our inspection that the services were moving out of this site. The services operated from 8am to 8pm.
• The district nursing office at Ash Vale Health Centre that hosted the Surrey Heath community nursing teams at Wharf Road Aldershot. The service operated from 8am to 8pm.
• Frimley Green Health Centre on Beech Road, Frimley that hosted Surrey Heath community nursing teams, the intermediate care teams and community nursing weekend services. The service operated 7 days a week 8am to 8pm.
• Lightwater Health Surgery on All Saints Road, Lightwater, that hosted the seven day community nursing teams.
• Fleet community hospital in Fleet, that hosted the tissue viability and diabetes nursing teams and the service operated between 9am to 5pm.
• The service had podiatry clinics which were held at Aldershot Centre for Health and Yateley Medical Centre that operated on different days of the week between 9am to 5pm. The intermediate care in-reach service at Frimley Park Hospital, Camberley was available Monday to Friday.

The service had a registered manager in post. This service was last inspected and rated good overall under the previous provider Virgin Care Services Limited. The inspection report was a single report that covered all core services by the provider at the time. On this inspection we inspected and rated the community health service for adults under our current inspection methodology.

Updated 6 April 2023

We rated this location as good because:

• Staff had training in key skills, understood how to protect patients from abuse, and managed safety and controlled infection risk well. Staff assessed risks to patients, acted on them and kept good care records. There was appropriate medicines management process in place. The service managed safety incidents well and learned lessons from them. Staff collected safety information and used it to improve the service.
• Staff provided good care and treatment, checked that patients had access to enough food and drink, and gave them pain relief when they needed it. Managers monitored the effectiveness of the service and made sure staff were competent. Staff worked well together for the benefit of patients, advised them on how to lead healthier lives, supported them to make decisions about their care, and had access to good information.
• Staff treated patients with compassion and kindness, respected their privacy and dignity, took account of their individual needs, and helped them understand their conditions. They provided emotional support to patients, families and carers.
• The service planned care to meet the needs of local people and made it easy for people to give feedback. People could access the service when they needed it, although some services were reporting high waiting times.
• Leaders ran services well using reliable information systems and supported staff to develop their skills. Staff understood the service’s vision and values, and how to apply them in their work. Staff felt respected, supported and valued. They were focused on the needs of patients receiving care. Staff were clear about their roles and accountabilities. The service engaged well with patients and the community to plan and manage services and all staff were committed to improving services continually.

However;

• Managers and team leaders did not ensure that clinical supervision was always recorded in line with policy. It was not clear how the teams identified and recorded personal areas for development through the supervision programme.
• Managers did not always record in staff appraisals the strengths of the appraisee and the areas they needed to improve on, in line with the provider’s overall strategy.
• The service was reporting a high waiting list for podiatry of up to 84 weeks. Staff reported this was as result of podiatry services being suspended during Covid-19 pandemic and national shortage of podiatrists. We were concerned that people who needed the service may not always get timely interventions.
• Rapid response/ intermediate care teams did not ensure that patients were contacted within the 24- 48 hours response time set by commissioners.
• The service was reporting a vacancy rate of 12.2% across all staff group. Staff reported that the teams were quite stretched which had been impacted by sickness and people going on leave. However, staff reported the workload was generally manageable.

Updated 6 April 2023