PRACTICE PROFILE BEVAN HEALTHCARE CIC
Jim Killgore visits an innovative practice in Bradford offering healthcare exclusively to the homeless and vulnerable
Medicine on the streets
M
IKE was living out on the streets of Bradford when he was first approached by the Street Medicine Team run by Bevan Healthcare CIC – a local primary care provider in the city. “We could clearly see that he had a lot of problems but he wasn’t
having anything to do with us,” says Gina Rowlands, managing director of Bevan and also a practising nurse. “It took a considerable amount of going up and speaking to him to
get some sort of engagement. Initially he wouldn’t say anything; then he started to tell us where to go! Then I actually asked him: what is it you really want? And he said: ‘I want a haircut’.” So the practice organised for a support worker to take Mike (not his
real name) along with £3.50 to a local barber. “That’s all it took for him to engage,” says Gina. “He started to speak
to the team. We built up trust – it was a mutual thing. Eventually he registered at the practice and started coming along. Things are not perfect for him but it was a huge step forward. And it was just something as simple as a haircut.” Gina can tell many such stories from the more than 10 years she has worked at Bevan House. Recently I visited Bradford to chat with her about the unique and innovative primary care service the practice provides exclusively for local homeless people, those living in temporary or unstable accommodation, refugees and asylum seekers and others who have difficulty accessing healthcare. In April of this year the Care Quality Commission awarded Bevan House an Outstanding rating in all five of its key lines of enquiry (KLOEs). Professor Steve Field, chief inspector of general practice said: “I had the benefit of being part of the inspection team and I can vouch personally for Bevan House. If there is a better practice in England I look forward to visiting it… This is an utterly outstanding practice and just shows what can be achieved with excellent leadership and teamwork which includes the team and the patients that this practice serves.”
AN INCLUSIVE MODEL Bevan House is located strategically in Bradford city centre in a bright,
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newly renovated Victorian building that would be the envy of many a GP surgery in the UK. The clinical team includes eight part-time GPs and two practice nurses, a vulnerable migrants nurse, a mental health nurse and a full-time health care assistant, supported by a team of administrative staff. The practice is unique in a number of respects. It operates under an APMS (Alternative Provider Medical Services) contract which allows it to partner with other non-NHS bodies, such as voluntary or commercial providers to supply enhanced and additional primary medical services. Bevan Healthcare is also an independent community interest company (CIC) which is a type of social enterprise set up to use all profits and assets for the public good. This means the practice does not have partners; instead it has a board of non-executive directors with an executive management team. “It’s a very inclusive model,” says Gina. “We are all salaried and any surplus we make at the end of the year goes back into the community. It’s also a really flexible model allowing us to bid for pots of money that probably regular NHS practices wouldn’t be able to do because of the way that they are structured.”
TAKING CARE TO THE PATIENT Speaking with Gina it’s hard to keep up with all the local initiatives the practice is involved with – the Street Medicine Team being just one of the more high-profile schemes. This is a dedicated service that operates at food drop-ins, night shelters and emergency hostels, and on the streets, bringing healthcare directly to homeless patients or those with inadequate housing. The team runs a Street Medicine Bus in which patients can see a doctor or nurse in privacy. “It’s a motorhome which we managed to purchase with a bit of
money from the lottery and some of our own funds,” says Gina. “It’s dead kitsch, about 25-years-old. At first people were a bit reluctant to get on it; they don’t like change. But it’s really quite cosy; it’s private and warm in the winter. There is a mental health worker who works with us; there’s also a housing worker. It just makes their lives a bit
AUTUMN 2016 ISSUE 15
PHOTOGRAPHS: TIM SMITH
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