The Commonwealth Health Centre

Updated 19 December 2023

The Commonwealth Health Centre is located in Tilbury, Essex.

Quebec Road

Tilbury

Essex

RM18 7RB

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

The practice is situated within the Mid and South Essex Integrated Care System (ICS) and delivers General Medical Services (GMS to a patient population of about 5087. This is part of a contract held with NHS England.

The practice is part of a wider network of Tilbury and Chadwell primary care network (PCN).

Information published by Office for Health Improvement and Disparities shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the second lowest decile (2 of 10). The lower the decile, the more deprived the practice population is relative to others.

According to the latest available data, the ethnic makeup of the practice area is 4.5% Asian, 68.9% White, 19.3% Black, 3.2% Mixed, and 3.9% Other.

The age distribution of the practice population closely mirrors the local and national averages. There are more working-age patients and child patients registered at the practice.

There is a team of 5 GPs who provide cover at the practice. There is 1 physician associate and a team of 3 nurses who provide nurse-led clinics for long-term conditions. There are 3 mental health nurses who support the practice. The GPs are supported at the practice by a team of reception/administration staff. The practice manager provides managerial oversight.

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

Extended access is provided locally by Tilbury and Chadwell primary care network, where late evening and weekend appointments are available. A clinical pharmacist is available Monday to Friday 6.30 pm – 8 pm and Saturday 9 am – 5 pm to support medication reviews Out of hours services are provided by NHS 111.

Updated 19 December 2023

We carried out a targeted assessment of The Commonwealth Health Centre on 23 November 2023 without a site visit. Overall, the practice is rated as good. We rated the key question of responsive as requires improvement.

Safe -good

Effective – good

Caring - good

Responsive – requires improvement

Well led - good

Following our previous inspection in April 2019, the practice was rated good overall and for all key questions. At this inspection, we rated the practice requires improvement for providing responsive services.

The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for The Commonwealth Health Centre on our website at www.cqc.org.uk

Why we carried out this inspection

We carried out this inspection as part of our GP responsive assessment

• Responsive question inspected

This included:

• Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing.
• Requesting evidence from the provider.

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 had given lower patient GP access survey results at the last inspection and the practice had made changes, including contractual changes to respond to the patient data received.
• Although the practice was making improvements to access, the national GP patient survey data showed a slow decline in satisfaction since 2019.
• The provider had changed telephone provider and patients had access to an online video to explain how to use a call-back function.
• Same-day access was implemented for all child appointments.
• Extended access appointments were revised to include more screening and immunisation for patients outside of core practice opening hours.
• Patient survey data was audited monthly to monitor progress and patient satisfaction outcomes.
• Recognising high-risk patient groups, longer appointments were offered to address multiple health concerns. This was implemented following an analysis that 32 % of the patients registered lived with complex health needs.

Although we did not identify any breaches, the provider:

• Should continue to audit patient survey data and continue to implement and review changes to access.

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