Springhead Health

Updated 9 May 2022

Springhead Health is a GP Practice providing services under general medical services (GMS) contract to approximately 22,500 patients living in the Gravesend and Northfleet area of Kent. The practice runs a number of services for its patients including; sexual health advice and family planning, chronic disease management, smoking cessation, health checks and travel vaccines and advice.

Springhead Health is registered with the CQC to provide the regulated activities;

Treatment of disease disorder or injury

Surgical procedures

Diagnostic and screening procedures

Maternity and midwifery services

Family planning.

Information published by Public Health England shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in one of the low-range deciles (four). The lower the decile, the more deprived the practice population is relative to others.

There is a team of nine GPs (five of whom are directors), two advanced nurse practitioners/prescribers, five practice nurses, three clinical pharmacists, two physicians’ associates, a paramedic, and three healthcare assistants. The GPs are supported at the practice by a team of reception, administration and patient services staff. The practice business manager who is also a director, provides managerial oversight.

Due to the enhanced infection prevention and control measures put in place since the pandemic and in line with the national guidance, GP appointments were a mix of telephone consultations and face to face consultations. If the GP needs to see a patient face-to-face then the patient is offered an appointment at the practice.

Out of hours services are provided by NHS 111.

Appointments can be booked over the telephone, online or in person at the surgery. Patients are provided information on how to access an out of hour’s service by calling the surgery or viewing the practice website (www.springheadhealth.co.uk).

Updated 9 May 2022

We carried out an announced inspection at Springhead Health on 22 February 2022 to 28 February 2022. We carried out a visit to the premises on 1 March 2022. Overall, the practice is rated as Good.

Safe – Requires improvement

Effective – Good

Responsive – Good

Caring-Good

Well-led - Good

The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Springhead Health on our website at www.cqc.org.uk

Why we carried out this inspection.

This inspection was a first rated inspection for a new provider.

We undertook this inspection at the same time as CQC inspected a range of urgent and emergency care services in Kent and Medway. To understand the experiences of GP providers and people who use GP services, we asked a range of questions in relation to urgent and emergency care. The responses received have been used to inform and support system wide feedback.

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.

This included:

• Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing
• 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

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.

We found that:

• In most instances the practice provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm. However, some areas of practice, for example; responding to risk, required further action.
• 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 recruitment systems kept people safe.
• The practice had safeguarding systems in place to protect patients from harm.
• The practice continued to develop systems and responses to the appointment needs of patients.

We found one breach of regulations. The provider must:

• Ensure that care and treatment is provided in a safe way.

The provider should:

• Continue to review and improve the coding and recall systems for patients to include diabetes and patients requiring blood tests.
• Review and improve the Patient Group Directions (PGDs) to ensure the authorising manager re-approves the record when new staff had been added.
• Continue to monitor and improve the provision and promotion of cervical screening services.
• Improve childhood immunisation rates so that the minimum 90% target is met for all five indicators.
• Continue to monitor patient feedback in order to review and improve patient access, patient satisfaction with consultations and ease of getting through on the phone.

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