Stonyhill Medical Practice

Background to this inspection

Updated 21 June 2017

Stonyhill Medical Practice is based in Blackpool, Lancashire. The practice is part of Blackpool Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and delivers services under a Personal Medical Services contract with NHS England.

The practice is located on the first floor of South Shore Primary Care Centre on the outskirts of the town. There is easy access to the building and disabled facilities are provided. There is a car park and disabled parking places. There are four GP partners working at the practice, three male and one female. The practice also employs a salaried GP. The practice is a teaching practice for medical students including student nurses. There are three female practice nurses and two nurse practitioners, two health care assistants and a practice pharmacist. There are two practice managers and a team of administrative and reception staff.

The practice is open between 8am and 6.30pm, Monday to Friday. Extended hours are available until 8 pm on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.

When the practice is closed, patients are able to access out of hours services offered locally by the provider Fylde Coast Medical Services by telephoning 111.

There are 8538 patients on the practice list. The majority of patients are white British. The largest population group (21% of patients) within the practice are aged over 65. Low numbers of patients are working status (48.3% compared to 61.5% nationally). A high number of patients have long term health conditions (64.3% compared to 54% nationally).

Information published by Public Health England rates the level of deprivation within the practice population group as one on a scale of one to ten. Level one represents the highest levels of deprivation and level ten the lowest.

Overall inspection

Good

Updated 21 June 2017

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Stonyhill Medical Practice on 3 October 2016. The overall rating for the practice was requires improvement. The full comprehensive report on the October 2016 inspection can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Stonyhill Medical Practice on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

This inspection was an announced focused inspection carried out on 21 April 2017 to confirm that the practice had carried out their plan to meet the legal requirements in relation to the breaches in regulations that we identified in our previous inspection on 3 October 2016. This report covers our findings in relation to those requirements and also additional improvements made since our last inspection.

Overall the practice is now rated as Good.

Our key findings were as follows:

Significant event meetings ensured reviews of actions taken were monitored and trends were analysed. We also saw evidence that the actions taken in relation to safety alerts were now actively reviewed.
Arrangements for safeguarding reflected relevant legislation and local requirements. The policies now clearly outlined who to contact for further guidance if staff had concerns about a patient’s welfare. Staff had received training on safeguarding children and vulnerable adults relevant to their role.
Practice specific policies had been reviewed and updated.
There was now an effective overview of staff training.
All staff who acted as chaperones were now trained for the role and had received a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check.
All staff had completed infection control training relevant to their role.
There were now systems in place to monitor the use of blank prescriptions.
We saw evidence of a program of continuous clinical audit which demonstrated improvements to care and treatment which were implemented and monitored.
Administrative staff were now aware that incoming clinical post should be seen by a GP.
The practice now offered new patient health checks to all patients
Appropriate arrangements for identifying, recording and managing risks, issues and implementing mitigating actions were in place. A planned date was in place for portable appliance testing to ensure equipment was safe to use.

There were areas of practice where the provider should make further improvements.

The provider should:

Review the practice recruitment policy.
Continue to monitor protected learning time for staff to conduct training and other tasks

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP)

Chief Inspector of General Practice