Archived: Brompton Medical Centre

Updated 7 July 2022

The registered provider is Sydenham House Medical Group which is a primary care at scale organisation that delivers general practice services at five registered locations in England.

Brompton Medical Centre is located at 28A Garden Street, Gillingham, Kent, ME7 5AS. The practice is situated within the NHS Kent and Medway Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and has a general medical services contract with NHS England for delivering primary care services to the local community.

As part of our inspection we visited Brompton Medical Centre, Gun Lane, Strood, Rochester, Kent, ME2 4UW only, where the provider delivers registered activities.

Brompton Medical Centre has a registered patient population of approximately 2,837 patients. The practice is located in an area with a higher than average deprivation score.

There are arrangements with other providers to deliver services to patients outside of the practice’s working hours.

The practice staff consists of one of the provider’s GP Partners (male), one practice manager, one practice nurse (female), one healthcare assistant (female), as well as reception staff. The practice also employs locum GPs via an agency when required. Practice staff are also supported by the Sydenham House Medical Group management team.

Brompton Medical Centre is registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to deliver the following regulated activities: diagnostic and screening procedures; family planning; maternity and midwifery services; treatment of disease, disorder or injury.

Updated 7 July 2022

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Brompton Medical Centre on 30 April 2019. The overall rating for the practice was Requires Improvement.

After our inspection in April 2019 the provider wrote to us with an action plan outlining how they would make the necessary improvements to comply with the regulations.

We carried out an announced focussed inspection at Brompton Medical Centre on 29 June 2021. The overall rating for the practice was Requires Improvement.

After our inspection in June 2021 the provider wrote to us with an action plan outlining how they would make the necessary improvements to comply with the regulations.

The full comprehensive and focussed reports can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Brompton Medical Centre on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Why we carried out this inspection:

We carried out an announced focussed inspection at Brompton Medical Centre on 21 June 2022 under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008, as part of our regulatory functions. The inspection was planned to check whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

How we carried out the inspection:

Throughout the pandemic CQC has continued to regulate and respond to risk. However, taking into account the circumstances arising as a result of the pandemic, and in order to reduce risk, we have conducted our inspections differently.

This inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to spend a minimum amount of time on site. This was in line with all data protection and information governance requirements.

This included:

• Completing clinical searches on the practice’s patient records system and discussing findings with the provider
• Requesting evidence from the provider
• A short site visit

Our judgement of the quality of care at this service is based 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.

Our findings:

We have rated this practice as Good overall.

We rated the practice as Good for providing safe services because;

• The provider had made improvements to the practice’s systems, practices and processes so that people were kept safe and safeguarded from abuse.
• The arrangements for managing medicines had been improved so that patients were kept safe.

We rated the practice as Good for providing effective services because:

• Improvements had been made so that patients’ needs were assessed, and care as well as treatment were delivered in line with current legislation, standards and evidence-based guidance.
• Improvements had been made to the care and treatment (including reviews) of patients with long-term conditions, such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), hypertension, atrial fibrillation, and patients experiencing poor mental health (including dementia).
• The provider was aware of published performance data relating to childhood immunisations as well as some cancer screening and was continuing to take action to improve uptake by relevant patients.

We rated the practice as Good for providing well-led services because:

• Improvements had been made to processes for managing risks, issues and performance.
• Clinical and internal audit were now being used to monitor quality as well as to make improvements.
• The practice now had an active Patient Participation Group (PPG).

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Consider revising practice systems to ensure that all reviews of patients with mental health conditions (including dementia) follow relevant best practice guidance.
• Continue with plans to improve uptake of childhood immunisations and some cancer screening by relevant patients.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP

Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care

Please refer to the detailed report and the evidence tables for further information.