Brackley Medical Centre

Updated 16 November 2022

Brackley Medical Centre is located in Northamptonshire at:

Wellington Road

Brackley

Northamptonshire

NN13 6QZ.

The purpose-built premises also include the dispensary, an independent community pharmacy, an occupational health service and the community hospital. Although located within the same premises, for the purpose of this inspection we only inspected the dispensary and GP practice. The practice contracts the delivery of the dispensary service to the community pharmacy, including the recruitment and management of dispensary staff. Therefore, elements of this service are excluded from our inspection as the pharmacy is subject to inspections from the General Pharmaceutical Council independently.

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, family planning and surgical procedures.

The practice is situated within the Northamptonshire Integrated Care System (ICS) and delivers General Medical Services (GMS) to a patient population of about 16,000. This is part of a contract held with NHS England.

The practice is part of a wider network of GP practices known as the Brackley and Towcester Primary Care Network (PCN). This consists of four practices in total working together to provide services to the local population.

Information published by Public Health England shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the highest decile (10 of 10). The lower the decile, the more deprived the practice population is relative to others.

According to the latest available data, the ethnic make-up of the practice area is 97.5% White, 0.9% Asian, 0.4% Black, 1.1% Mixed, and 0.01% Other.

The age distribution of the practice population closely mirrors the local and national averages. There are more male patients registered at the practice compared to females.

There is a team of six GP partners and four salaried GPs (male and female). The practice has a team of four nurses who provide nurse led clinics for long-term conditions. In addition, there is an Urgent Care Team and six health care assistants. The GPs are supported at the practice by a team of reception/administration staff. There is team of managers and team leaders, including the practice manager, finance and operations managers. At the time of our inspection, there had been a change in practice management, with the new manager having been in post than two months.

The practice is open between 8am to 6.30pm Monday to Friday. In addition, appointments are available between 7am and 8am on Thursdays, between 6.30pm and 8pm on Mondays and Tuesdays and between 8.30am and 12pm on Saturdays. The practice offers a range of appointment types including book on the day, telephone consultations and advance appointments.

Additional extended access is provided locally on a rota basis with the practice’s PCN to provide access between 6.30pm and 8pm on Fridays and between 8.30am and 4.30pm on Saturdays. Out of hours services are provided by NHS 111 services.

Updated 16 November 2022

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Brackley Medical Centre on 4 October 2022, this included remote interviews on the 3 October, and site visits on 5 and 11 October 2022. Overall, the practice is rated as Good.

Safe - Good.

Effective – Good.

Caring – Good.

Responsive – Outstanding.

Well-led – Good.

Why we carried out this inspection

We carried out this inspection as the practice had not been inspected since registering with the CQC in November 2020.

How we carried out the inspection

This inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to spend a minimum amount of time on site.

This included:

• Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing.
• Completing clinical searches on the practice’s patient records system (this was with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements).
• Reviewing patient records to identify issues and clarify actions taken by the provider.
• Requesting evidence from the provider.
• A short site visit of the practice and an additional visit to the dispensary.

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 found that:

• The practice provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm.
• Where we identified gaps in systems and processes the practice responded in a timely manner to reduce risks to patients and staff.
• Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs. Where areas of improvement were identified, the practice took timely action to monitor the effectiveness of patient care.
• Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
• 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-centred care.

We rated the practice as outstanding for providing responsive services because:

• The practice was proactive in supporting the increasing number of patients suffering from drug and alcohol substance misuse, by facilitating a satellite service onsite.
• GPs had established a charity to support children and young people who fell into a gap between requiring low level school counselling and the criteria and long wait times for CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services). This charity provided mental health support in local schools.
• The practice had established a menopause group clinic service. This virtual clinic, facilitated by one of the GPs using a video conferencing tool, was established to support women through the menopause by offering them the opportunity to speak with other women and receive professional health advice collectively.

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

• Continue taking action to embed arrangements for maintaining records relating to staff vaccination and immunity status, oversight of staff training and medicines management.
• Implement proposed processes for recording creatinine clearance levels for patients taking blood thinning medicines to assess efficacy.
• Take steps to reduce the risk of backlogs forming for patient reviews.
• Continue to monitor the efficacy of recently introduced systems to manage patients who do not attend for appointments, particularly those with long term conditions who do not regularly attend reviews.
• Continue to encourage and engage patients to attend for cervical screening.

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