Updated 15 December 2021
The North Central London Special Allocation Scheme is a service provided by Medicus Health Partners Ltd (the provider), which is registered by the CQC in respect of the regulated activities Diagnostic and screening procedures and Treatment of disease, disorder or injury.
The service is provided under an Alternative Provider Medical Services contract, commissioned by NHS England and covers five London boroughs: Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Haringey and Islington. It provides patients who have been otherwise excluded from mainstream primary care with access to GP services. Patients are assigned to the service by Primary Care Support England. There are currently 201 patients allocated. The service, which operates for adults over the age of 18-years, provides:
- GP appointments
- Nurse appointments
- Health checks and Long-term condition management
- Diagnostics and onward referrals are via local pathways agreed with the service commissioners
Similar services covering Luton, Bedford and Milton Keynes and Buckinghamshire are provided under a separate registration.
The service operates at Bingfield Primary Care Centre, 8 Bingfield Street, Islington, London N1 0AL, offering face to face appointments and telephone consultations on Tuesday afternoons and Wednesday and Thursday mornings. Telephone consultations are available on Fridays.
Patients can book appointments with GPs or nurses by telephoning the service between 8:00 am and 6:30 pm Monday to Friday, excluding bank holidays. Face to face, telephone and online appointments are available. However, due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, phone appointments are usually offered initially, and the clinician will assess the need for a face to face consultation and offer one is thought appropriate and necessary.
The clinical team is made up of three male GPs and an advanced nurse prescriber. The provider also has a team of pharmacists who assist in the patient care. Emergency cover for unplanned absences is available from within the provider’s wider clinical team. No locums are used.
The support team comprises an interim service manager, a social prescriber / administrator and an administrator / receptionist. Calls to the service, for appointments booking, etc., are handled at the provider’s principal place of business, away from the service location.
Further information on the service and the conditions relating to allocated patients can be found on the following website –
www.medicus-selectcare.co.uk
How we carried out the inspection
Throughout the COVID pandemic CQC has continued to regulate and respond to risk. However, having taken account of the circumstances arising from the pandemic, and in order to reduce risk, we have conducted our inspections differently.
This inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to spend a minimum amount of time on site. This was with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements.
This included:
- Completing clinical searches on the practice’s patient records system, which we later discussed with the provider’s staff
- A site visit
- Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing
- Reviewing patient records to identify issues and clarify actions taken by the provider
- Requesting evidence from the practice
We based our judgement of the quality of care at this service on a combination of:
- what we found when we inspected
- information from our ongoing monitoring of data about services, and
- information from the provider, patients and other organisations
To get to the heart of patients’ experiences of care and treatment, we always ask the following five questions:
- Is it safe?
- Is it effective?
- Is it caring?
- Is it responsive to people’s needs?
- Is it well-led?
These questions therefore formed the framework for the areas we looked at during the inspection.