Archived: BPAS - Southampton

Updated 26 May 2020

BPAS Southampton is operated by British Pregnancy Advisory Service. The service opened in 2012 and at the time of inspection provided consultation and early medical abortions. No surgical procedures were carried out at this clinic. The service was contracted as part of the Solent Integrated Sexual Health Contract in January 2012. In June 2013 the service was extended when the Southampton NHS termination of pregnancy service was decommissioned.

The clinic offers consultation, medical assessment, early medical abortion and medical abortion up to ten weeks gestation, counselling and treatment. As part of the care pathway, patients are offered sexual health screening and contraception.Treatment options are determined by the gestation of pregnancy and patient choice. Surgical termination of pregnancy is not provided at BPAS Southampton and therefore we have not reported on this. However, if patients presented with later gestation, they were referred to another clinic that provided surgical termination of pregnancy.

Updated 26 May 2020

BPAS Southampton is operated by British Pregnancy Advisory Service. British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) provides a termination of pregnancy service in Southampton, under contract with an NHS trust. The contract permits BPAS Southampton to use premises shared with the NHS sexual health service. We inspected the termination of pregnancy service using our comprehensive inspection methodology. We carried out an unannounced inspection of the service on 13 March 2020. On-clinic facilities included; three screening rooms, one for early medical abortion appointments, two clinical rooms and one room for the client care co-ordinator.

To get to the heart of patients’ experiences of care and treatment, we ask the same five questions of all services: are they safe, effective, caring, responsive to people's needs, and well-led? Where we have a legal duty to do so we rate services’ performance against each key question as outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate. Throughout the inspection, we took account of what people told us and how the provider understood and complied with the Mental Capacity Act 2005. The main service provided by this service was termination of pregnancy.

Services we rate

We rated it as Good overall. However, there were areas of outstanding practice that included;

Staff reviewed ways they could change practice in order to improve the patient experience. Staff were reviewing training for providing implant contraceptives. The report on teenage pregnancy had resulted in the development of a parental support leaflet. Staff reviewed repeat patient’s data and as a result were looking at how to reduce the number of appointments patients had to attend.

Areas of good practice included;

Staff understood their role in reporting safeguarding concerns. All staff we spoke with knew how to identify abuse, female genital mutilation, child sexual exploitation and the implementation of Gillick and Fraser guidelines.

Leaders supported staff with the emotional element of the job as well as their physical safety when protesters were located near the clinic. Governance processes ensured performance and risks were monitored and reviewed at board level.

The service was organised to support patients to be anonymous. The clinic was not signposted, patients were advised to only give a booking reference at reception, so no one knew why they were attending and staff uniforms were generic and did not contain a BPAS logo.

Nigel Acheson

Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals (London and South)

Updated 26 May 2020

• BPAS Southampton is operated by British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS). The service provides termination of pregnancy as a single speciality service. We rated the service as good overall.

• The service had enough staff to care for patients and keep them safe. Staff had training in key skills and understood how to protect patients from abuse.

• Staff provided good care and treatment, managers monitored the effectiveness of the service and made sure staff were competent. Staff worked well together for the benefit of patients.

• There was a person-centred culture. Staff were highly motivated to offer care that was kind and promoted patient’s dignity. Staff took patient’s personal, cultural, social and religious needs into account. People’s individual needs and preferences were central to the planning and delivery of services. The services were flexible, provided choice and ensured continuity of care.

• There was a proactive approach to understanding the needs of different groups of people and to deliver care in a way that met these. Patients could access services in a way and at a time that suited them. There was active review of complaints and patients were involved in the review.

• Leaders ran services well. Staff understood the service’s vision and values, and how to apply them in their work. Staff felt respected, supported and valued. The service engaged well with patients to plan and manage services and all staff were committed to improving services.