The Practice Northumberland Avenue

Updated 5 February 2024

The Practice Northumberland Avenue provides a range of primary medical services to the local population from its premises at 32 Northumberland Avenue, Southend-on-Sea, SS1 2TH.

The practice is operated by ‘The Practice Surgeries Limited’, this company is part of the wider Operose Health Group of companies under the operation management of Operose Health Limited. Services are provided on an Alternative Provider Medical Services (APMS) contract to a population of approximately 6500 patients.

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

The practice has a Registered Manager in place. ( A Registered manager is an individual registered with CQC to manage the regulated activities provided). There is a regional medical director, a regional manager and a deputy regional manager. The practices clinical team consists of a Lead GP, a Pharmacist, a Practice Nurse and a Healthcare Assistant. They are supported by a team of reception and administrative staff, an assistant practice manager and a practice manager. In addition to this, there are locum GP’s and locum Advanced Nurse Practitioners working at the practice as well as staff from the Primary Care Network.

The practice is part of a wider network of GP practices called Southend Victoria Primary Care Network.

Information published by Office for Health Improvement and Disparities shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the first lowest decile (1 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 85.2% White, 5.4% Asian, 4.2% Black, 3.7% Mixed and 1.5% Other.

Extended access is provided locally where late evening and weekend appointments are available. Out of hours services can be contacted through NHS 111.

Updated 5 February 2024

We carried out an announced focused inspection at The Practice Northumberland Avenue on 16 January 2024. 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 - Good

Effective - Good

Caring – Good

Responsive – Good

Well-led - Good

Following our previous comprehensive inspection in April 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 Practice Northumberland Avenue on our website at www.cqc.org.uk

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 peoples demands 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, high-quality care to the people they serve. We know staff are carrying this out whilst the demand for general practice remains exceptionally high, with more appointments being provided than ever. However, 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 inspection

This assessment was carried out remotely. It did not include a site visit.

The process included:

• Conducting an interview with the provider and members of staff using video conferencing.
• Reviewing patient feedback from a range of sources
• Requesting evidence from the provider.
• Reviewing data we hold about the provider.
• 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:

• Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way and the provider had implanted systems and processes as a result of patient feedback.
• National GP patient survey results relating to access were mostly above national averages.
• Complaints were satisfactorily handled in a timely way.

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