Unity Healthcare

Updated 11 November 2022

Unity Healthcare is located in the town of Haverhill at:

Clements Surgery

Greenfields Way

Haverhill

CB9 8LU

The name of the registered provider is Suffolk GP Federation C.I.C. (Suffolk Fed). The provider is a community interest company.

Unity Healthcare, previously known as Clements, Kedington and Steeple Bumpstead Surgery is referred to in this report as ‘the practice’.

The practice provides a dispensing service which we inspected as part of this inspection. The practice dispenses to approximately 4,500 patients and is open Monday to Friday from 9am to 11am and from 3.30pm to 6.30pm.

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 services and surgical procedures.

The practice is situated within the NHS West Suffolk Integrated Care Board (ICB) and delivers General Medical Services (GMS) to a patient population of about 17,630. This is part of a contract held with NHS England.

The practice is part of a wider network of two GP practices that has successfully recruited a number of allied healthcare professionals to support the delivery of the services provided at the practice.

Information published by Public Health England shows that deprivation within the practice population group is at level six which is in the mid-range for deprivation. 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 1.9% Asian, 95.3% White, 1.2% Black, 1.4% Mixed, and 0.2% Other.

The age distribution of the practice population closely mirrors the local and national averages. There is an equal distribution of male and female patients registered at the practice.

There is a team of seven GPs supported by a team of allied health professionals comprising Advanced Nurse Practitioners, emergency care practitioners, pharmacists, dispensers, physician associates, nurses and healthcare assistants. There is a practice manager and a team of reception/administration staff.

The practice is open between 8am to 6:30pm Monday to Friday. The practice offers a range of appointment types including book on the day, telephone consultations, ‘Econsult’, and advance appointments.

Extended access is provided locally by Haverhill GP+, where late evening and Saturday appointments between 9am and 8:30pm are available. Out of hours services are accessed by calling the NHS 111 service

Updated 11 November 2022

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Unity Healthcare on 23 September 2022. Overall, the practice is rated as good.

Safe - Good

Effective - Good

Caring - Good

Responsive - Good

Well-led - Good

Following our previous inspection on 01 December 2020, the practice was rated requires improvement overall and for caring and responsive key questions, and good for safe, effective and well-led.

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

Why we carried out this inspection

We carried out this inspection to follow up concerns from a previous inspection in line with our inspection priorities.

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.
• Staff questionnaires

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:

• Patients with safeguarding concerns identified had been discussed in safeguarding meetings and alerts had been attached to patient’s records.
• Health and safety, risk management systems including fire, the dispensary, and medicines management processes, were well managed.
• The practice had effective systems to ensure all emergency medicines and equipment were safe to use.
• We found that the practice had established a clear action plan to address the backlog of structured medicine reviews that had developed, throughout the COVID-19 pandemic period. During the remote searches that we carried out prior to the onsite inspection, we did identify some areas that still needed to be acted on within their action plan. At the onsite inspection we were shown the patient recalls that had been set-up to monitor and address the remaining identified gaps.
• Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
• The practice respected patients’ privacy and dignity and patient confidentiality was maintained throughout the practice
• 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, however, some continued work was required to implement consistency in patient monitoring.
• There was a culture of learning and support within the practice. The practice was a GP training practice and currently had four trainee GPs.

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

• Continue to implement and improve consistency when monitoring patients with long term conditions and those taking high-risk medicines.
• Continue work to improve the uptake of cervical screening.
• Continue with the patient satisfaction work to improve patients overall experience at the GP practice.

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