Background to this inspection
Updated
1 October 2021
The London Road Surgery is located at Market House in Wickford.
Market House
Market Road
Wickford
Essex
SS12 0AA
The surgery has good transport links and there is a pharmacy located nearby. There is a small car park behind the practice with some dedicated disabled spaces.
The provider is registered with CQC to deliver the Regulated Activities; diagnostic and screening procedures, maternity and midwifery services and treatment of disease, disorder or injury and surgical procedures.
The London Road Surgery is situated within the Basildon and Brentwood Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and provides services to approximately 13,000 patients under the terms of a general medical services (GMS) contract. This is a contract between general practices and NHS England for delivering services to the local community.
The provider is a partnership who registered with the CQC in April 2013. The practice has three male GP partners and three female salaried GPs, in addition to, a nurse practitioner, two practice nurses and a healthcare assistant, there are a team of administrative staff. They use locum GPs when required. The practice is a member of a local primary care network (PCN) of GP practices.
The practice have a higher than average number of patients aged over 65 and fewer patients aged between 5 and 18, than the national average. The ‘General Practice Profile’ shows that 95.7% of the practice population is from a white background with the remainder of the population originating from black, Asian, mixed or other non-white ethnic groups. Information published by Public Health England, rates the level of deprivation within the practice population group as eight, on a scale of one to ten. Level one represents the highest levels of deprivation and level ten the lowest.
Male life expectancy is 81 years compared to the national average of 79 years. Female life expectancy is 85 years compared to the national average of 83 years.
Updated
1 October 2021
We carried out an announced inspection on 3rd September 2021 at The London Road Surgery. Overall, the practice is rated as Good.
Safe - Good
Effective - Good
Caring - Good
Responsive - Good
Well-led - Requires Improvement
Following our previous inspection in November 2020, the practice was rated inadequate overall and placed in a continued period of special measures. Specifically, they were rated as inadequate for safe services, requires improvement for effective services, good for caring services, requires improvement for responsive services, and inadequate for well-led services. The inspection in November 2020 was carried out to follow-up on the breaches of regulations first identified at the January 2020 inspection, where the practice was rated inadequate overall, specifically inadequate for safe, effective and well-led services and good for caring and responsive services. We took enforcement action against the provider, specifically we issued a warning notice and placed them in special measures. The actions within the enforcement notice were undertaken within the three-month timeframe we gave the provider.
The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for The London Road Surgery on our website at www.cqc.org.uk
Why we carried out this inspection
This was a comprehensive inspection to follow-up of the regulation breaches found at the two inspections in January and November 2020, and to re-rate the practice
The focus for this inspection included:
- Areas followed up including the breaches of regulations and the area where we asked the provider to make improvements at previous inspections.
This included:
- Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing and onsite.
- Completing clinical searches on the practice’s patient records system and discussing findings with the provider.
- Reviewing patient records to identify issues and clarify actions taken by the provider.
- Requesting evidence from the provider.
- A short site visit.
How we carried out the inspection
Throughout the pandemic CQC has continued to regulate and respond to risk. However, taking into account the circumstances arising as a result of the pandemic, and in order to reduce risk, we have conducted our inspections differently.
This inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to spend a minimum amount of time on site. This was with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements. We therefore undertook some of the inspection processes remotely and spent less time on site. We conducted remote searches and staff interviews on 23 August 2021 and carried out a site visit on 3 September 2021.
We based our judgement of the quality of care at this service on a combination of:
• what we found when we inspected
• information from our ongoing monitoring of data about services and
• information from the provider, patients, the public and other organisations.
Our findings
We based our judgement of the quality of care at this service on a combination of:
- what we found when we inspected
- information from our ongoing monitoring of data about services and
- information from the provider, patients, the public and other organisations
We have rated this practice as good overall and good for all population groups
We found that:
The breaches found in the previous inspections had be complied with and actioned.
- The practice provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm.
- Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs.
- Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
- The practice adjusted how it delivered services to meet the needs of patients during the pandemic. Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.
- We found improvements to lead, manage, and promote the delivery of quality, person-centre care was found, in development however was not yet embedded sufficiently at this inspection.
Whilst we found no breaches of regulations, the provider should:
- Continue to work on the practice strategy and embed it at the practice.
- Improve the coding of patient records for long term conditions and mental health indicators.
- Continue to improve the uptake of cervical screening.
- Continue to develop the practice audit programme and embed it at the practice.
- Continue to develop a continuous learning programme and embed it at the practice.
I am taking this service out of special measures. This recognises the significant improvement made to the quality of care provided by this service.
Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.
Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP
Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care