Archived: Southdowns Private Healthcare

Updated 10 September 2018

We carried out an announced visit to Southdowns Private Healthcare on 3 July 2018.

Southdowns Private Healthcare is a private GP service based in Emsworth, a small town near the border of East Sussex. It offers a range of other services including advanced health screening, clinics for joint pain and mole assessment, and vaccinations.

The provider rented rooms in a building owned and run by Hampshire Health (a private health clinic), since 2011. It shares this facility with a travel clinic, an ear clinic and an occupational health service. The practice has two GP consulting rooms on the ground floor, along with a store room containing a vaccine fridge. Registered patients are drawn from a wide geographical area, and their age distribution is broadly in line with the national average, with most patients being of working age or older. In the first six months of 2018, the practice registered 365 new patients for GP services (which includes vaccinations, medicals, and GP appointments), and also saw patients (both adults and children) who were not registered with the practice, for non-GP services. The practice has member patients who pay a monthly subscription that is inclusive of appointments, an annual health check and prescriptions.

The practice clinical team consists of three GPs (two male, one female. A male GP is also the prescribing lead, and Registered Manager). The clinical team is supported by a personal assistant who also covers reception duties.

Southdowns Private Healthcare is open from 12pm to 2pm, on Monday, Thursday and Friday; from 9.30am to 2pm on Tuesday; and from 10.30am to 2pm on Wednesday. The practice will take calls from 9am to 4.30pm, Monday to Friday. Routine appointments are generally available between 12pm and 2pm, and can be booked as required. Details of fees are available on the practice website, on a leaflet available in the practice and when the patient completes a treatment form at the reception desk.

We reviewed a range of information we hold about the practice in advance of the inspection and asked other organisations to share what they knew. We informed Hampshire Healthwatch that we were inspecting the practice; we did not receive any information of concern from them. During our visit we:

• Spoke with the full complement of staff: two GPs, and one personal assistant;
• Reviewed an anonymised sample of the personal care or treatment records of patients;
• Reviewed 17 Care Quality Commission comment cards where patients and members of the public shared their views and experiences of the practice.
• Reviewed a range of policies, procedures and management information held by the practice.

The provider delivers regulated activities from its location at 97 Havant Road, Emsworth, Hampshire PO10 7LF. It also delivers services from a branch site at The Boxgrove Clinic, The Street, Boxgrove, Chichester PO18 0ES. The Boxgrove Clinic was not visited as part of this inspection.

To get to the heart of patients’ experiences of care and treatment, we always ask the following five questions:

• Is it safe?
• Is it effective?
• Is it caring?
• Is it responsive to people’s needs?
• Is it well-led?

These questions therefore formed the framework for the areas we looked at during the inspection.

Updated 10 September 2018

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection on 3 July 2018 to ask the provider the following key questions: are services safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led?

Our findings were:

Are services safe?

We found that this service was providing safe care in accordance with the relevant regulations.

Are services effective?

We found that this service was providing effective care in accordance with the relevant regulations.

Are services caring?

We found that this service was providing caring services in accordance with the relevant regulations.

Are services responsive?

We found that this service was providing responsive care in accordance with the relevant regulations.

Are services well-led?

We found that this service was providing well-led care in accordance with the relevant regulations.

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the practice was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Southdowns Private Healthcare is a private GP service based in Emsworth, Hampshire. The practice offers a range of other services including advanced health screening, clinics for joint pain, mole assessment, and vaccinations.

The Nominated Individual is the registered manager. A registered manager is a person who is registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

Seventeen people provided written feedback about the practice, by completing CQC comment cards, and we also spoke to one patient who contacted us prior to the inspection. They told us care was excellent, and that they felt involved in decision-making about the care and treatment they received. They told us they felt listened to and supported by staff, and had sufficient time during consultations to make an informed decision about the choice of treatments available to them. All of the 17 CQC comment cards we received were highly positive and aligned with these views.

Our key findings were :

• Patients told us they found it easy to access appointments with a GP.
• The practice offered out-of-hours appointments if required.
• The practice offered a range of vaccinations for children, adults and travel purposes, as well as post vaccination advice regarding (for example) common side-effects.
• The practice offered a counselling service in sexual health to accompany sexual health testing.
• The practice offered access to computerised tomography (CT) scans, to detect cancers and cardiovascular disease. CT scans use X-rays and a computer to create detailed images of the inside of the body.
• The practice offered a range of health checks with a GP.
• Patient satisfaction with the standard and quality of services received was high.

There were areas where the provider could make improvements and should:

• Review arrangements for recording vaccine fridge temperatures.
• Review arrangements for consent procedures for childhood immunisations.