Archived: Brook Oldham

Brook Oldham is operated by Brook Young People and provides confidential sexual health services, support and advice to young people under the age of 20. Brook Oldham is registered to provide care and treatment under the following regulated activities: diagnostic and screening services, family planning and treatment of disease, disorder or injury.

CQC received no notifications or safeguarding enquiries in relation to Brook Oldham in the 12 months prior to the inspection.

During the inspection, we reviewed documentation such as care and treatment records. We spoke with young people attending the clinics, staff working in organisations that interacted with Brook Oldham and staff working within the service.

We found the following areas of good practice:

• The service ensured up to date care and treatment was delivered to young people and based on national guidelines.
• Staff worked well together as part of a multidisciplinary team to coordinate and deliver patients’ care and treatment effectively.
• Staff maintained contemporaneous and accurate records of the care they provided and these were stored securely.
• The service and staff were working collaboratively with external organisations in order to deliver effective, evidence based and collaborative care for young people.
• Consent practices and records were actively monitored and reviewed to ensure young people were involved in making decisions about their care and treatment in line with relevant legislation.
• Staff worked hard to ensure that the privacy, dignity and confidentiality of young people attending the service was protected and that they were treated respectfully at all times.
• There were good systems in place to manage and learn from complaints and service users were aware of how to raise concerns.
• Service users experienced minimal waits when attending for their appointments or drop in sessions.
• Young people were protected from avoidable harm. Safeguarding of young people was managed effectively by staff who were able to recognise early signs of abuse and act upon these appropriately.
• Staff worked collaboratively to safeguard young people with a charitable organisation, who were co-located with Brook Oldham. This allowed joined up working and facilitated early recognition of possible abuse and exploitation.
• The service employed a practitioner who worked across different health settings to ensure that service users received consistent care and treatment, which took account of all relevant factors. This service included in-reach into acute hospitals and liaison with alcohol and drug teams. 
• The premises were fit for purpose and co located with other advisory and support services, which provided a single point of access for young people.
• The feedback from young people who used the service and stakeholders was consistently positive.
• There was effective leadership throughout the service and we observed good working relationships and support systems for leaders within the service.
• Staff felt valued, respected and felt proud to work in the service.
• Staff told us that their leaders were visible, approachable and supportive.
• We found that staff felt engaged with the national organisation and were able to talk to us about the overall vision and values for the organisation.
• There was an open culture within the service and staff were actively encouraged to report issues of concern.
• There were good systems for managing risks and we found that risks that had been identified were appropriately monitored and acted upon.

However, we also found the following issues that the service provider:

• There was a very low rate of incident reporting, however, staff were able to tell us what type of incidents they would need to report and were able to show us how they would report an incident.
• Not all staff providing care and treatment to young people received level 3 safeguarding children training.

Following this inspection, we told the provider that it must take some actions to comply with the regulations and that it should make other improvements, even though a regulation had not been breached, to help the service improve. We also issued the provider with one requirement notice that affected sexual health services. Details are at the end of the report.