Archived: Urgent Care Centre - Scarborough

Updated 13 November 2017

Urgent Care Centre (UCC) - Scarborough is based in the Scarborough hospital accident and emergency A/E department and provides an urgent care and an out-of-hours service through a contract with Scarborough and Ryedale CCG. The population for Scarborough is approximately 102,000. Yorkshire Doctors Urgent Care (YDUC) which provides the service is part of a national organisation, Vocare Limited, which provides urgent care and out-of-hours services (OOHs) to 10 million patients across the United Kingdom.

Patients can access the out-of-hours service from 6.30pm to 8am Monday to Friday and 24 hours throughout Saturday, Sunday and Bank Holidays. Calls to the out-of-hours service are handled by the NHS 111 telephone number.  Patients are informed whether they will receive a telephone triage by the clinician in YDUC or face to face contact. The calls are passed directly to the YDUC system and appointments are directly booked for patients in the YDUC diary. The telephone triage system prevents unnecessary journeys for patients and enables appropriate coordination of home visits and appointments according to clinical urgency at the OOH /Urgent Care Centre (UCC) at Scarborough A&E department. Patients presenting at A&E are assessed and streamed to the most appropriate service for further assessment and treatment, either A&E or the OOH/UCC service. A mixture of YDUC and Acute Trust staff provide the streaming service for patients presenting, this is on an agreed rota schedule.

There is a Local Clinical Director for Scarborough and a stable clinical staff team. There are two full time GPs and two part time GPs covering the UCC - Scarborough and UCC - Malton sites. There are four full time nurses and nine part time nurses based at the UCC - Scarborough and UCC - Malton sites. There are 14 bank GPs and eight part-time nurses who split their shifts between Scarborough and Malton (bank staff are GPs and nurses who are not employed permanently by YDUC but who are available to work as and when required). All of the clinicians, permanent and bank, will work across all the centres covered by YDUC as and when required.

The service employs a number of both male and female GPs and nursing staff from the local community. The clinicians are supported by an administration / call handling team, receptionists, drivers and a management team who are responsible for the day to day running of the service.

The service supported the training of GP Registrars; doctors who are training to become GPs.

Updated 13 November 2017

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at the Urgent Care Centre - Scarborough on 5 September 2017. The service provides a fully integrated Urgent Care Centre and Out-of-hours minor injuries and minor illness service. Overall the service is rated as good.

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

• There was an open and transparent approach to safety and an effective system in place for recording, reporting and learning from significant events.

• Risks to patients were assessed and well managed.

• Patients’ care needs were assessed and delivered in a timely way according to need. The service met the National Quality Requirements.

• 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. Staff had access to and made use of e-learning training modules and in-house training.

• There was a system in place that enabled staff access to patient records. The out-of-hours staff provided other services, for example the local GP and hospital, with information following contact with patients as was appropriate.

• The service managed patients’ care and treatment in a timely way.

• Patients 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 had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs. The vehicles used for home visits were clean and well equipped.

• 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 duty of candour is a set of specific legal requirements that providers of services must follow when things go wrong with care and treatment).

  However there were areas of practice where the provider needs to make improvements.

The provider should:

• Monitor that all staff were up to date with mandatory training refresher updates.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice