Updated 5 June 2018
Yarl’s Wood Immigration Detention Centre is situated near Bedford and operated by Serco. At the time of the comprehensive inspection the centre held over 300 detainees. Most were women, although there were also some adult family groups and a small number of men held in a part of the establishment designated as a residential short-term holding facility.
Health services at Yarl’s Wood are commissioned by NHS England (NHSE). A range of integrated health services are provided by G4S Health Services (UK) Limited to detainees comparable to those found in the wider community. This includes GP, pharmacy and nurse-led clinics. The location is registered to provide the regulated activities, diagnostic and screening procedures, surgical procedures, treatment of disease, disorder or injury and family planning.
CQC inspected this location with HMIP between the 12 and 15 June 2017. We found evidence that fundamental standards were not being met and one Requirement Notice was issued in relation to Regulation 12: Safe Care and Treatment of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. We subsequently asked G4S Health Services (UK) Limited to make improvements regarding these breaches. We checked these areas as part of this desk based focused inspection and found that the provider had addressed the issues identified that fell within their control and remit.
We carried out a focused desk based inspection on 1 May 2018 under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. We inspected to check whether the provider had met the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, specifically whether they had satisfied one Requirement Notice issued on 23 November 2017.
During this inspection we inspected the provider against one of the five questions we ask about services:
- is the service safe?
This question therefore formed the framework for the areas we looked at during this focused desk based inspection.
Before our inspection we reviewed a range of information that we held about the service and asked other organisations to share any intelligence they could. During the inspection we looked at a range of documentation provided by G4S including:
- a 72 hour review of a serious incident written by G4S
- three action plans including a recent updated version
- a summary of the outcome of GP consultations review which showed each contact by this GP and the outcomes
- a full root cause analysis investigation report which looked at how the GP was able to gain employment at Yarl’s Wood with a timeline leading to subsequent actions once it was discovered the GP did not possess the correct registration
- a response to NHSE queries provided by G4S Health Services (UK) Limited
- e-mail exchanges with the G4S Head of Health and Justice and NHSE
The evidence submitted provided sufficient assurance that the previous breaches of regulations had been addressed.