Hanley Primary Care Access Hub

Updated 11 June 2019

Hanley Primary Care Access Hub is registered with the Care Quality Commission to provide an urgent care service.

The service is managed by North Staffordshire GP Federation (NSGPFed), a not for profit private limited company which was established in 2015, following the demise of the previous GP Federation.

The service currently supports 74 GP practices across the Stoke-on-Trent and North Staffordshire area covering 500,000 patients. Members are independent practices who are working together to represent primary care as a provider in the development of services and new models of service provision and has a board of nine directors, including two clinical directors. The GP Federation aim to provide continuing care for local patients, and to reduce Accident and Emergency (A&E) attendance by patients for whom primary care services are more appropriate.

More information about the provider is available on their website at www.nsgpfed.org.uk

Hanley Primary Care Access Hub is a service commissioned by the North Staffordshire and

Stoke-on-Trent Clinical Commissioning group (CCG) and provides urgent care from 8am to 8pm 365 days of the year.

The service is run from 69-71 Stafford Street, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, ST1 1LW. All the clinical rooms are on the ground floor and there is flat and level access from the street into the service.

The service took over the premises from the private company that had been running the primary care access hub until they handed the contract back in 2018.

All appointments are on the day walk in appointments. There are no pre-bookable appointments. Patients can be signposted to the service through the NHS 111 service who determine whether the patient is suitable to be seen by the GPs at Hanley Primary Care Hub.

All patients are seen by a streaming nurse within 20 minutes of their booking into reception at the service. The streaming nurses determine how clinically urgent each appointment is and book the patient with a doctor or advanced nurse practitioner (ANP) accordingly. The service has two streaming nurses and have shifts of GPs and ANP to provide 12 hours of GP and ANP appointments daily. This provides a total of 80 healthcare appointments daily, which the CCG commission from the service.

The service offer GP shifts to the federation members on a sessional basis. The service has approximately 30 regular sessional GPs providing the GP appointments. The ANPs at the service are currently self-employed and work on a sessional basis. The streaming nurses and administrative and reception staff are employed by the service, some of whom had transferred from the previous private provider.

The management team consists of the service manager and deputy manager of Hanley Primary Care Access Hub, they are supported by the associate director of operational services, with operations over seen by the provider’s Associate Director of Operational Servicesand the board of directors.

GPs have access to patients ’clinical records and provide assessment, treatment, order tests in addition to prescribing and making urgent referrals where appropriate. The outcome of each consultation is sent electronically to the patient’s registered practice the same working day so that the patient’s usual registered GP practice is kept fully informed of the outcome of the consultation in a timely manner.

Updated 11 June 2019

This service is rated as Good overall. (This service had not previously been inspected).

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 Hanley Primary Care Access Hub. This was to rate the service as part of our inspection programme. The service is a primary care urgent care service in the centre of Hanley Stoke on Trent.

Our key findings were:

• The service had good systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen.
• The service routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided through individual clinician audit. It ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence- based guidelines.
• Staff involved and treated people with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
• Patients were able to access care and treatment from the service within an appropriate timescale for their needs.
• There was a strong focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels of the organisation.

The areas where the providershouldmake improvements are:

• Consider review of alert process to include capture of staff receipt and action.
• Simplify the significant event process to avoid duplication.
• Consider opportunities for health promotion.
• Formalise action plan following infection prevention and control audit.
• Consider an aide memoir for the signs of sepsis and serious infection within reception.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGPChief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care