Archived: Eaves Lane Surgery Also known as SSP Health Ltd

Updated 17 September 2015

Eaves lane Surgery is situated in Chorley Lancashire. It is part of the NHS Chorley and South Ribble Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG.) Services are provided under a personal medical service (PMS) contract with NHS England. There are 2000 registered patients. The practice is situated on a busy main road with on-street parking available. Information published by Public Health England, rates the level of deprivation within the practice population group as three on a scale of one to ten. Level one represents the highest levels of deprivation and level ten the lowest. Deprivation affecting children with in the practice is rated at 22% compared with CCG averages of 13.2%, deprivation affecting older people is rated at 28% compared with CCG averages of 17%. Both these results are higher than the National averages of 21.8% and 18.1% respectively.

The practice population includes a lower number (16.2%) of people over the age of 65, and a higher number (40.4%) of people under the age of 18, in comparison with the national average of 26.9% and 31.9% respectively. The practice also has a lower percentage of patients who have caring responsibilities (12.3%) than both the national England average (18.4%) and the CCG average (21.6%). The practice a high rate of patients with health-related problems in daily life (61%) compared with CCG and National averages of 50.3% and 48.7%.

The practice telephone lines opens from 8.00 am to 6.30pm Monday to Fridays except Thursday when they close at 1pm. Late appointments with the nurse are available until 8pm on Wednesday evening. They hold seasonal Flu vaccination clinics at certain times of the year. Patients requiring a GP outside of normal working hours are advised to contact an external out of hour’s at Chorley Medics based Euxton Lancashire.

The practice is part of a large organisation SSP Health Ltd and at the Eaves Lane Surgery site there is one GP, a part time vacancy for a GP, one nurses, a patient liaison officer, a practice manager, an office manager and a reception team.

On-line services include appointment booking and ordering repeat prescriptions and access to medical records.

Updated 17 September 2015

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Eaves Lane Surgery on 12 August 2015. Overall the practice is rated as good.

Our key findings across all the areas we inspected were as follows:

• Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns and report incidents and near misses. Opportunities for learning from internal and external incidents were maximised.

• Risks to patients were assessed and well managed.
• Patients’ needs were assessed and care was planned and delivered following best practice guidance. Staff had received training appropriate to their roles and any further training needs where needed had been identified and planned.
• Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.

• The practice worked closely with other organisations and with the local community in planning how services were provided to ensure that they meet people’s needs.

• The practice implemented suggestions for improvements and made changes to the way it delivered services as a consequence of feedback from patients and from the Patient Participation Group (PPG). The practice proactively sought feedback from staff and patients, which it acted on.

• Information about how to complain was available and easy to understand.

• The practice employed a patient liaison officer to assist patients to give feedback and discuss any issues they may have at the time they were in the surgery.

• The practice had a clear vision which had quality and safety as its top priority. High standards were promoted and owned by all practice staff with evidence of cohesive team working across all roles.

• There was a clear leadership structure and staff felt supported by management.

We saw areas of outstanding practice including:

• The practice had engaged with the local community and the practice nurse attended the local community centre on a specific day, in an attempt to reach hard to reach groups and people who are reluctant to visit their GP. If any underlying health issues were identified the patients (if they belonged to the practice) were offered an appointment at the practice and patients from other practices were advised to attend their own GP.

• The practice had a robust safety system in place to safeguard patients prescribed disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) for example Methotrexate.

However, there were also areas of practice where the provider needs to make improvements.

Action the provider SHOULD take to improve:

• The practice should deepen the scope of learning and improvement that can come from their audit programme.

• The practice should ensure the documentation used to record audit and significant events analysis is supported by evidence of reflection, investigation, changes made and the learning from this analysis.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

Updated 17 September 2015

The practice is rated as good for the care of people with long-term conditions. Nursing staff had lead roles in chronic disease management and patients at risk of hospital admission were identified as a priority. Longer appointments and home visits were available when needed. All these patients had a named GP and a structured annual review to check that their health and medication needs were being met. For those people with the most complex needs, the named GP worked with relevant health and care professionals to deliver a multidisciplinary package of care.

Updated 17 September 2015

The practice is rated as good for the care of families, children and young people. There were systems in place to identify and follow up children living in disadvantaged circumstances and who were at risk, for example, children and young people who had a high number of A&E attendances. Immunisation rates were relatively high for all standard childhood immunisations. Patients told us that children and young people were treated in an age-appropriate way and were recognised as individuals. Appointments were available outside of school hours and the premises were suitable for children and babies. We saw good examples of joint working with midwives and health visitors

Updated 17 September 2015

The practice is rated as good for the care of older people. Nationally reported data showed that outcomes for patients were good for conditions commonly found in older people. The practice offered proactive, personalised care to meet the needs of the older people in its population and had a range of enhanced services, for example, in dementia and end of life care. It was responsive to the needs of older people, and offered home visits to both the patients home and care homes and rapid access appointments for those with enhanced needs.

Updated 17 September 2015

The practice is rated as good for the care of working-age people (including those recently retired and students). The needs of the working age population, those recently retired and students had been identified and the practice had adjusted the services it offered to ensure these were accessible, flexible and offered continuity of care. The practice was proactive in offering online services as well as a full range of health promotion and screening that reflects the needs for this age group.

Updated 17 September 2015

The practice is rated as good for the care of people experiencing poor mental health (including people with dementia). We found 92% of patients experiencing poor mental health had received an annual physical health check. The practice regularly worked with multi-disciplinary teams in the case management of people experiencing poor mental health, including those with dementia, alcohol and drug related dependency.

The practice had told patients experiencing poor mental health about how to access various support groups and voluntary organisations. It had a system in place to follow up patients who had attended accident and emergency (A&E) where they may have been experiencing poor mental health. Staff had received basic training on how to care for people with mental health needs and dementia.

Updated 17 September 2015

The practice is rated as good for the care of people whose circumstances may make them vulnerable. The practice held a register of patients living in vulnerable circumstances including those with a learning disability. The practice had carried out annual health checks for people with a learning disability and all these patients had received a follow-up. It offered longer appointments for people with a learning disability or those with multiple health needs..

The practice regularly worked with multi-disciplinary teams including the local women’s refuge, in the case management of vulnerable people. The practice had told vulnerable patients about how to access various support groups and voluntary organisations. Staff knew how to recognise signs of abuse in vulnerable adults and children. Staff were aware of their responsibilities regarding information sharing, documentation of safeguarding concerns and how to contact relevant agencies in normal working hours and out of hours.