- Prison healthcare
Heathrow IRC Cluster
Report from 20 February 2025 assessment
Contents
Judgements
Our view of the service
We inspected this provider in February 2025. Harmondsworth IRC is an immigration removal centre (IRC) located near Heathrow which has been operated on behalf of the Home Office by Care and Custody, a division of the Mitie Group. Practice Plus Group (PPG) is the lead provider of healthcare services at Harmondsworth IRC. The provider is registered with the CQC to provide the following regulated activities at the location: Treatment of disease, disorder or injury and diagnostic and screening procedures.
We accompanied His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) on their independent review of progress to conduct a focused inspection of healthcare services at Harmondsworth IRC. At our last joint inspection with HMIP in July 2024, we found that the quality of healthcare provided by PPG at this location required improvement. We issued a Requirement Notice in relation to Regulation 18, staffing.
The purpose of this focused inspection in February 2025 was to determine if the healthcare services provided by PPG were meeting their legal requirements.
During this inspection, we looked at 1 quality statement and reviewed the breach of regulation from the last inspection. We spoke with health care staff, and reviewed systems and procedures. We found that sufficient improvements had been made, and PPG was no longer in breach of the regulation. Staff supervision and appraisal had improved, operating procedures had been reviewed and changed to better meet its supervision requirements.