Over the last two years we have inspected every Trust registered hospital and community base. We have completed annual inspections of the James Cook University Hospital and The Friarage as well as completing themed inspections at the hospitals, which looked at both Accident and Emergency departments as well has the Trust’s termination of pregnancy services. We found that the Trust encouraged us to identify any ways they could improve.

Teams of CQC staff have inspected all the locations and these teams included specialist advisors and experts by experience. Throughout the two years we have held regular meetings with Trust representatives and discussed work the Trust is completing to maintain and improve their service. We have found that over the two years the Trust has remained compliant with all the regulations.

Our central analytic team have constantly reviewed the data the Trust has submitted to the various bodies overseeing their work and used this to assess the performance of the Trust. The central team have also compared this information on performance against other Trusts both in the North East, across the country and against Trusts with similar size populations and services. The last published risk rating for the Trust placed them in band 6, which is the lowest risk rating.

We found that the Trust’s quality assurance system was effective. It covered all aspects of the service and did not lose sight of the needs of the patients using the community services.

We went to the One Life Centre over the Christmas period to determine the level of service provided and went with a specialist advisor who specialises in the operation of these types of services. We found that the Trust operated distinct and separate services at the centre. Each speciality such as podiatry and physiotherapy were managed by separate teams. At the time of our visit over two floors seven clinics were operating and on the ground floor the X ray department was open.

We spoke with a range of clinical staff who included the locality manager, podiatry and physiotherapy managers and visiting clinical specialists. We spoke with nine patients and a relative. We also reviewed clinical care records and staffing rotas.

We found that each clinician was extremely knowledgeable about the best practice and expected care outcomes for their patients’ health condition. Patients were extremely complimentary about the service they had received at the centre.

We saw that the clinicians effectively supported the patients attending the centre and had developed a range of clinics across Tees Valley and provided treatment in patient’s own homes. We found that the staffing levels were sufficient to ensure that all planned clinics operated and there was flexibility in the system that allowed for unexpected events such as needing to provide cover for sickness.