Enter and view: Virgin Urgent Care Centre, Croydon
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Healthwatch Croydon conducted an Enter and View visit to Virgin Urgent Care Centre, Croydon, on 29 March 2014.
The visit was prompted by the chair of Healthwatch Croydon meeting senior staff of Virgin Urgent Care Centre who invited Healthwatch Croydon to come and visit at any time to come and see how services are delivered. Healthwatch Croydon’s advisory group saw an article titled “CQC raises serious concerns about Urgent Care Centre”. The article was based on the CQC inspection report from September 2013.
The article outlined the issues that: some patients’ conditions worsened potentially as a result of waiting longer than the 20 minute target before being assessed; patients being inappropriately sent to the Urgent Care Centre instead of A&E because of poor triage; patients not being given appropriate information in relation to their treatment; patients with special needs not receiving the assistance they need (e.g. access to hearing loop); and staff claims that provision of care to adults is not safe.
The A&E service at Croydon University Hospital is delivered by two providers: Virgin Care deliver the Urgent Care Centre and Croydon University Hospital deliver the A&E Department. Patients can transfer between the two services, without knowing that they have been transferred to a different provider or process. This means that, while care has been taken, patient comments contained within the report may refer unknowingly to the care delivered by the A&E service rather than Urgent Care.
The report provides the patient view of the waiting time, triage process and of the patient experience of the consultation (if patients wanted to discuss this as they were leaving).
The Authorised Representatives observed some miscommunication between staff and patients leading to a breakdown in the triage system, patients not being asked if they had particular communication needs, and longer waits for patients triaged as needing to go to A&E than those needing to see Urgent care staff.
The recommendations made are based on observations, conversation with patients and with staff. There is no provider response contained within the report.