Inspectors from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) recently visited four Urgent Treatment Centres at Queen’s Hospital, King George Hospital, Barking Hospital and at Harold Wood Polyclinic, which are run by the Partnership of East London Co-operatives (PELC).
While inspectors noted good practice in a number of areas and recognised the caring approach from staff, unfortunately the CQC has rated the services as ‘inadequate’ and placed PELC into special measures.
This means that PELC has been given specific recommendations on actions required to improve. They will be monitored on their progress, and the CQC will revisit the services in the summer.
Here you can view the full reports for the Urgent Treatment Centres at Queen’s Hospital, King George Hospital, Barking Hospital and at Harold Wood Polyclinic. Theyset out serious concerns about the quality of clinical assessment procedures, particularly how the service closely monitors and manages the care of those waiting to be seen.
The inspections also formed part of a follow-up on CQC’s system-wide review of urgent and emergency care services across the North East London (NEL) integrated care system, carried out in November 2021.
Providing patients with safe, high quality services is our utmost priority, and we are working closely with PELC and our partners across the system to improve.
A number of steps have already been taken to address the concerns raised by the CQC, which are already producing positive improvements in the performance, quality and oversight of the services.
Zina Etheridge, Chief Executive of NHS North East London, which commissions the Urgent Treatment Centres run by PELC, said:
“Following the CQC inspections of the four urgent treatment centres run by the Partnership of East London Cooperatives (PELC), health and care partners in north east London took immediate action to address the concerns raised and are now working closely together on an agreed improvement plan to boost care in the region.
“This includes ensuring initial clinical assessments are carried out within agreed, safe timelines, and more closely monitoring patients that are waiting to be seen.
“Together, with improvements to the way the organisation is managed and a new plan for managing capacity and demand, our plans will help us tackle the long waits and mean we provide better safer care for patients.”
