Kirkby Community Primary Care Centre

We carried out an announced inspection at Kirkby Community Primary Care Centre on 12 July 2022. Overall, the practice is rated as Good.

Safe - Good

Effective - Good

Caring – Good

Responsive – Requires Improvement

Well-led – Good

The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Kirkby Community Primary Care Centre on our website at www.cqc.org.uk

Why we carried out this inspection

This was a comprehensive inspection as this location had been registered by CQC following a change in service provider.

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:

• 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 COVID-19 pandemic. Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.
• The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centre care.
• Staff spoke highly of leaders and were able to raise concerns without fear of retribution.
• Patients spoke highly of the practice team and reported the team to be welcoming and kind.
• Patients we spoke to expressed the difficulties to obtain an appointment.
• Staff we spoke to expressed the difficulties in booking patients appointments due to the demand.
• There was not a sufficient amount of appointments to meet the needs of patients.
• There was a significant backlog in the summarising of records. The provider had an action plan in place to address the backlog which included the recruitment of a notes summariser.

Whilst we found no breaches of regulations, the provider should:

• Continue to monitor staffing levels at the practice and ensure sufficient support is made available to reception and administration staff to manage workloads at the practice.
• Continue to monitor staffing levels at the practice to ensure sufficient appointments are available for patients to access care.
• Continue to monitor summarising of records against the practice action plan.

Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA Chief Inspector of Hospitals and Interim Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services