The Care Quality Commission
  • Community
  • Community healthcare service

Archived: BOC Healthcare Headquarters

Overall: Outstanding read more about inspection ratings

10 Priestley Road, The Surrey Research Park, Guildford, Surrey, GU22 7XY (01483) 579857

Provided and run by:
BOC Limited

Important: This service is now registered at a different address - see new profile

All Inspections

27 September, 2 November, 9 December, 21 December 2022

During a routine inspection

Our rating of this location improved. We rated it as outstanding because:

  • The service had enough staff to care for patients and keep them safe. Staff had training in advanced specialist skills, understood how to protect patients from abuse, and managed safety well. The service controlled infection risk well. Staff assessed risks to patients, acted on them and kept good care records underpinned with extensive auditing. The service managed safety incidents well and learned lessons from them. Staff collected safety information and used it to improve the service.
  • Managers monitored the effectiveness of the service through a programme of continual, ambitious auditing and benchmarking. They made sure staff were competent by providing an extensive programme of continual professional development focused on developing innovative care.
  • Staff worked well together for the benefit of patients and used a wide range of multidisciplinary opportunities to explore opportunities for improved care. Staff advised patients on how to lead healthier lives, supported them to make decisions about their care, and had access to good information. Staff sought an expansion of health promotion services where this would improve patient outcomes.
  • Staff treated patients with compassion and kindness, respected their privacy and dignity, took account of their individual needs, and helped them understand their conditions. They provided emotional support to patients, families and carers and adapted care delivery based on individual needs.
  • The service planned care to meet the needs of people, took account of patients’ individual needs, and made it easy for people to give feedback.
  • Leaders ran services well using reliable information systems and supported staff to develop their skills through a programme of engagement. Staff understood the service’s vision and values, applied them in their work, and used provider standards to challenge the status quo. Staff felt respected, supported and valued. They were focused on the needs of patients receiving care and creating a working environment that promoted innovation and development. Staff were clear about their roles and accountabilities. The service engaged meaningfully with patients and the community to plan and manage services and all staff were committed to improving services through research and exploration of new evidence-based practice.

29, 30 April and 2 May 2019

During a routine inspection

BOC Healthcare Headquarters is part of the British Oxygen Company (BOC). BOC has diversified from manufacturing hospital and industrial gases to include a range of engineering and healthcare services.

Within BOC Healthcare Headquarters, the service we inspected is operated by the Clinical Services department of the homecare division.

NHS commissioners in England have purchased a variety of community service contracts from BOC such as assessments for home oxygen therapy and rehabilitation classes for people with lung or heart disease.

Services are delivered through home visits and clinics based at community medical centres or classes in gymnasiums and leisure centres. The service is controlled from the corporate headquarters in Guildford and overseen by a nominated individual and three registered managers. All documentation is held electronically through a centrally-hosted clinical computer system.

We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology. We carried out unannounced visits to assessment clinics and rehabilitation classes in London, Surrey, Hampshire and Nottinghamshire on 29 and 30 April 2019, along with a further inspection visit to the headquarters location, in Guildford, on 2 May 2019.

To get to the heart of patients’ experiences of care and treatment, we ask the same five questions of all services: are they safe, effective, caring, responsive to people's needs, and well-led? Where we have a legal duty to do so we rate services’ performance against each key question as outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate.

Throughout the inspection, we took account of what people told us and how the provider understood and complied with the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

This community health service is not provided to children or young people under the age of 18.

Services we rate

This is our first rating of this service. We rated it as Good overall.

  • This was an ambitious service that sought to benefit from technology and fully utilise the support provided by its parent corporation. Given the variety of dispersed contracts undertaken throughout England, we found a relatively small number of specialist staff providing a service that was safe and effective; caring, well organised and well managed by highly-committed and charismatic leaders.

  • We judged the way the service involved and treated people with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect as outstanding, with all other aspects as good.

However,

  • The service did not keep staff records containing a full work history, reasons for leaving previous employment in a regulated service or explanation of employment gaps in staff files as required by legislation. We acknowledge that managers retained curricula vitae for new starters, but this did not necessarily contain all the information needed.

  • We saw some instances where infection control guidance was not being followed. At one site we saw one staff member not cleaning their hands, or blood pressure cuffs after carrying out patient observations. This did not comply with best practice where hands and equipment should be cleaned after each patient contact.

Following this inspection, we told the provider that it should make two changes, even though a regulation had not been breached, to help the service improve. Details are at the end of the report.

Dr Nigel Acheson

Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals (South East), on behalf of the Chief Inspector of Hospitals