The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated Lymington Urgent Treatment Centre in the New Forest as outstanding, following an inspection in July.
Lymington Urgent Treatment Centre based in the Lymington New Forest Hospital, Lymington, Hampshire is a GP led service that assesses and treats people who arrive with minor injuries or illnesses and refers them to more appropriate services.
The inspection was carried out as part of CQC’s continual checks on the safety and quality of healthcare services.
Following the inspection, the overall rating for the service has improved from good to outstanding. The ratings for responsive and well-led have also improved from good to outstanding.
The domains of safe, effective and caring were not looked at during this inspection and all retain their previous rating of good.
Neil Cox, CQC deputy director of the south said:
“Staff at Lymington Urgent Treatment Centre provided exceptional care and treatment which prioritised people’s safety and people could access care in ways that met their personal circumstances and also protected equality characteristics.
“The service proactively worked with the community to plan and provide care in a way which met the needs of local people. They also provided easily accessible information, advice and advocacy to people using the service which supported them in managing and understanding their care and treatment.
“The service was effectively providing an efficient care journey for people thanks to their joined-up working. For example, people who attended the service with suspected pelvic and hip fractures were able to be diagnosed by x-ray at Lymington New Forest Hospital reducing the time and travel required to attend the nearest emergency department.
“The service had also initiated two-week wait referrals for investigations for suspected cancer, including processes to ensure primary care providers received and reviewed the referrals. This meant people with suspected cancer may access appropriate care faster.
“I want to congratulate all staff at Lymington Urgent Treatment Centre, who should be extremely proud of the exceptional care they’re providing to people using the service. Other providers should look at this report to see if there’s anything they can learn.”
Inspectors found:
- A local charity worked closely with the service to raise funds to improve and redesign the paediatric waiting room as a result of the increased numbers of children using the service. The charity was able to fund new equipment such as a new slit lamp and tonometer (an instrument for measuring the pressure in the eye) which upon an audit review, had reduced emergency department (ED) admissions by 600 patients a year
- Staff provided examples of how care had improved as a result of working closely with local healthcare organisations to provide joined-up care. Such as working in partnership with the crisis team at a local sexual assault referral centre so people were able to access specialist help
- Staff also described how the service met the needs of neurodiverse people and people with learning disabilities
- Leaders were in the process of developing a system to identify children or vulnerable adults signposted to emergency department who were then “not brought" to ensure they were followed up and not left without care.