The Orchard Surgery

Updated 4 March 2024

The Orchard Surgery is located Bromborough at:

The Orchard

Bromborough Village Road

Wirral

CH62 7EU

The provider is registered with CQC to deliver the Regulated Activities; diagnostic and screening procedures, maternity and midwifery services, surgical procedures and treatment of disease, disorder or injury.

The practice is situated within the Cheshire and Merseyside Integrated Care System (ICS) and delivers General Medical Services (GMS) to a patient population of about 6630. This is part of a contract held with NHS England.

The practice is part of a wider Primary Care Network made up of local GP practices who provide shared services to their patients.

Information published by Office for Health Improvement and Disparities shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the sixth decile (6 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 96.6% White, 1.6% Asian, 1.3% Mixed 0.3% Black and 0.3% Other.

The practice is open between 8am to 6.30pm Monday to Friday with extended hours 6.30pm to 8pm on Thursdays. The practice offers a range of appointment types including book on the day, telephone consultations and advance appointments.

Extended access is provided locally by the Primary Care Network, where late evening and weekend appointments are available. Patients can access the out of hours services by calling 111.

Updated 4 March 2024

Following our previous inspection on 22 January 2019 the practice was rated good overall and for all key questions. The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for The Orchard Surgery on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

We carried out an announced assessment focused on the responsive key question of The Orchard Surgery on 29 January 2024 without a site visit. The rating for the responsive key question is Good. As the other domains were not reviewed during this assessment, the rating of good will be carried forward from the previous inspection and the overall rating of the service will remain Good.

Safe - not inspected, rating of good carried forward from previous inspection

Effective - not inspected, rating of good carried forward from previous inspection

Caring - not inspected, rating of good carried forward from previous inspection

Responsive – good

Well-led - not inspected, rating of good carried forward from previous inspection

Why we carried out this inspection

We carried out this assessment as part of our work to understand how practices are working to try to meet demand for access and to better understand the experiences of people who use services and providers.

We recognise the work that GP practices have been engaged in to continue to provide safe, quality care to the people they serve. We know colleagues are doing this while demand for general practice remains exceptionally high, with more appointments being provided than ever. In this challenging context, access to general practice remains a concern for people. Our strategy makes a commitment to deliver regulation driven by people’s needs and experiences of care. These assessments of the responsive key question include looking at what practices are doing innovatively to improve patient access to primary care and sharing this information to drive improvement.

How we carried out the assessment

This assessment was carried out remotely.

This included:

• Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing.

• Requesting evidence from the provider.

• Reviewing patient feedback from a range of sources

• Reviewing data we hold about the service

• Seeking information/feedback from relevant stakeholders

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 had a proactive approach to identifying the needs of patients and responding to them.
• The practice worked with their patients and Patient Participation Group to identify where they might improve.
• Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way and the provider had implemented systems and processes as a result of patient feedback.
• National GP patient survey results relating to access were above local and national averages.
• Complaints were satisfactorily handled in a timely manner.

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

• Continue to identify ways of improving the appointment system and access to the service by phone.

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 Health Care