Bracknell Urgent Care Centre

Updated 10 June 2022

Bracknell Urgent Care Centre is located in a purpose built ‘Healthspace’ near the centre of Bracknell and provides urgent care services to the local population and the surrounding areas. The service is commissioned by Frimley Clinical Commissioning Group to provide assessment, care and treatment for both minor injury and minor illnesses. Only a small number of patients are seen as ‘walk-ins’, the majority are referred from NHS pathways such as the NHS 111 service or by their own GP practice.

Bracknell Urgent Care Centre also manages and delivers a GP streaming service at Wexham Park Hospital in Slough. The streaming service provides assessment to patients attending the hospital’s A&E department, streaming those deemed appropriate to be cared for by trained primary care clinicians, to GPs based onsite. All other patients remain A&E department patients. The patients allocated to the streaming service wait and are seen in the A&E department.

The service is one of 11 registered services managed and operated by One Medicare Ltd (the provider). These include urgent care centres, GP practices, and walk-in services. The provider’s head office and operations centre is based near Otley in West Yorkshire.

On the day of our inspection, the day-to-day operation of the service was managed by a clinical service manager, who is also the registered manager for the centre. There is also a GP clinical lead in post and a deputy clinical service manager.

Bracknell Urgent Care Centre is registered with the CQC to provide the following regulated activities:

• Diagnostic and screening procedures

• Family planning

• Maternity and midwifery services

• Surgical procedures

• Treatment of disease, disorder or injury

All the regulated activities are offered or managed from:

Brants Bridge
Bracknell
RG12 9RT

The service is open from 8am – 8pm, seven days a week.

Updated 10 June 2022

This service is rated as Requires Improvement overall. The service was last inspected in October 2018 and rated Good.

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? – Requires Improvement

Are services effective? – Requires Improvement

Are services well-led? – Requires Improvement

We carried out an announced (with short notice) comprehensive inspection at Bracknell Urgent Care Centre on 7 March 2022. We carried out this inspection due to concerns we received about the service. We did not include the key lines of enquiry related to caring and responsive services, as there were no risks identified with these key questions. We visited Bracknell Urgent Care Centre and a streaming service based at Wexham Park Hospital, operated and managed by Bracknell Urgent Care Centre.

At this inspection we found:

• Safeguarding processes were in place. Staff had access to policies and referral information.
• Infection control processes were in place and the premises were visibly clean.
• Medicines monitoring processes were not operated in line with national guidance.
• There was insufficient training for clinical staff members caring for children.
• Some clinicians were not provided with formal supervision sessions to monitor their performance. However, staff received formal appraisals.
• Staff received mandatory training and training uptake was monitored.
• The service did not effectively review the quality of care and treatment it provided. There was insufficient clinical audit to ensure appropriate care was always delivered.
• The assessment process in place at the Wexham Park Hospital Streaming service did not ensure that patients who were waiting to see a GP were safe to do so via an appropriately recorded assessment. The service adjusted the design of this service immediately following the inspection to mitigate this risk.
• When ‘walk in’ patients with minor injuries attended Bracknell Urgent Care Centre, they were not consistently assessed to ensure they would be seen in line with their clinical need and prioritised if needed.
• Staff were dedicated and passionate about the care they provided. Staff reported a positive supportive culture between colleagues and felt well supported by the local leadership.
• Governance structures were not always operated as intended which had resulted in risks not being identified and mitigated.

The areas where the provider must make improvements as they are in breach of regulations are:

• Effective governance systems must be implemented to ensure appropriate monitoring of quality and risk.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP

Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care