Archived: Houghton Health Centre Also known as Sunderland GP Alliance Limited

Updated 21 February 2020

Houghton Primary Care Centre is registered with the Care Quality Commission to provide NHS Out of Hours services. The service provides an extended GP access service from Brinkburn Crescent, Houghton Le Spring.

The provider of this service is Sunderland GP Alliance which is a federation of 35 practices in the Sunderland area. The provider has five extended access services which are registered with CQC. As part of this inspection we inspected three of the services on the same day;

• SGPA Extended Access East, Borough Road, Sunderland, SR1 2HJ.
• Houghton Primary Care Centre, Brinkburn Crescent, Houghton Le Spring, DH4 5GU.
• Washington Primary Care Centre, Parkway, Washington,Tyne and Wear,NE38 7QZ.

The administrative records for all of the services are held at Borough Road, Sunderland.

All three of the services we visited are located in buildings which are owned by NHS property services in which they have their own dedicated accommodation, they are primary care centres. The services inspected had dedicated disabled parking and access, and all services were on the ground floor. There was a car park close by.

The service directly employs some of the managers and administrators in the service. Most of the staff who work there are employed by the GP practices who are part of the federation and are employed a sessional staff. The service does not use locum staff.

The service provides extended GP access appointments via;

• The patients’ registered GP.
• NHS 111 service.

The service is led by GPs. There are advanced nurse practitioners working in the service, who are all medical prescribers, and health care assistants. The times the service is provided are as follows:

• Monday – Friday 6pm – 8.30pm. 
• Saturday & Sunday 9am - 5.30pm. 
• Bank holidays 10am – 2pm. 

The service for patients requiring urgent medical care outside of these and the GP surgery hours is provided by the NHS 111 service.

Updated 21 February 2020

This service is rated as Good overall.

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? – Good

Are services effective? – Good

Are services caring? – Good

Are services responsive? – Good

Are services well-led? – Good

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Houghton Primary Care Centre on 16 January 2020 as part of our comprehensive inspection programme.

At this inspection we found:

• The service had good systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. When they did happen, the service learned from them and improved their processes.
• The service reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care they provided. They ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence-based guidelines.
• Staff involved and treated people with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
• Patients were able to access care and treatment from the service within an appropriate timescale for their needs.
• There was a strong focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels of the organisation.

We saw one area of outstanding practice:

• The provider was committed to empowering people who used the service to have a voice. They had devised a software solution to collect patient feedback and this was beginning to shape the way services were delivered. In particular, women’s services such as cervical smears were being piloted as a result of the feedback received.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP

Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care