Background to this inspection
Updated
25 November 2019
Lyme Valley Medical Centre (the provider) is located in a purpose-built primary care medical centre. It is situated in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire. The surgery has good transport links and there is a pharmacy located nearby.
The provider is part of a small healthcare provider group: Network Healthcare Solutions Limited; with four small practices, Archway surgery in Hemel Hempstead, Lyme Valley Medical practice in Staffordshire, Sudbury Primary care Medical Practice in Wembley and Waterside Medical Centre in Southall. The Lyme Valley Practice serves as the group’s headquarters and the medical leadership is provided by the medical director based at the Hemel Hempstead surgery.
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.
Lyme Valley Medical Centre is a member of North Staffordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and provides services to 8024 patients under the terms of a general medical services (GMS) contract. This is a contract between general practices and NHS England for delivering services to the local community.
The provider is a member of the Central Newcastle Primary Care Network (PCN).
The practice has one salaried GP, and two long term locum GPs; an advanced nurse practitioner, two practice nurses, a clinical pharmacist, a paramedic and a healthcare assistant. The clinical team are supported by a practice manager, a senior administrator and seven administrative/reception staff.
The practice is open from 8am to 6.30 pm on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday and open from 8am until 8pm on a Wednesday. The practice also offers two 7.30 am - 8am sessions per week which are reserved for working patients only and are flexible to support demand.
The practice does not offer an out of hours service and patients are directed to Staffordshire Doctors Urgent Care Limited (SDUC) via the NHS 111 service when the practice is closed.
Further information can be found on the practice website:www.lymevalley.co.uk
Updated
25 November 2019
We carried out an inspection of this service following our annual review of the information available to us including information provided by the practice. Our review indicated that there may have been a significant change to the quality of care provided since the last inspection. This inspection focused on the following key questions: Safe, responsive, caring, effective and well led.
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 have rated this practice as good overall and good for all population groups.
We found that:
- The practice provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm.
- Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs.
- Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
- The practice organised and delivered services to meet patients’ needs. Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.
- The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centred care.
Whilst we found no breaches of regulations, the provider
should
:
- Improve the identification of carers to enable this group of patients to access the care and support they need.
- Include the root cause analysis process in the significant event management and investigation to maximise learning opportunities.
- Complete the scoring process in the infection prevention and control audit.
- Consider the development of a forward audit plan.
- Update the consent policy to reflect current activity at the practice.
- Complete review of security for printed prescriptions.
- Continue planned surveys for patient satisfaction.
- Continue to monitor outlier data for high exception rates.
Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.
Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP
Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care