CHEC, one of the largest providers of community-based ophthalmology services in the UK, has received an ‘Outstanding’ rating for its Northampton-based eye hospital. Awarded by the Care and Quality Commission (CQC), this is the seventh CHEC site to be inspected, with all achieving ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’ status.
Following a thorough evaluation process at the Northampton site, CHEC was found to achieve exceptional performance across five main areas: safety, effectiveness, care, responsiveness and leadership.
One of the key areas which contributed to the ‘Outstanding’ award was CHEC’s focus on patient accessibility. Recognising that travelling for appointments can be challenging, CHEC introduced a range of patient-focused initiatives. These include a free Home to Hospital™ pick up service and collaboration with a local parking provider that not only gives two hours’ free parking for appointments, patients can also record their registration in the hospital rather than at the car park.
Jose Bailey, Commercial Director at CHEC, explains: “We put the patient front and centre of every decision we make about our service provision and operations. While the objective was to create an environment that delivered the very best quality and care for the patients, for Northampton to be recognised as ‘Outstanding’ by CQC is a brilliant achievement for the team.”
CHEC first opened its doors to patients in Northampton early April 2022. Since then, the community provider of ophthalmology services has seen almost 7000 patients and carried out over 1000 cataract surgeries.
“Based on our current performance, we can treat patients in an average of 4.2 weeks, which is much quicker than other pathways for the same treatments,” continues Jose. “Over the past year we’ve also expanded our services in line with community needs, so it’s more convenient than ever to access ophthalmology diagnostics and treatments.”
To learn more about the ophthalmology treatments CHEC provides in partnership with the NHS, or for details of the community healthcare provider’s CPD programme, please visit chec.uk
