Background to this inspection
Updated
30 August 2018
Asplands Medical Centre provides a range of primary medical services from its semi-rural location at Asplands Close, Woburn Sands in Bedfordshire. The practice has a branch surgery, known as the Woburn Surgery on Eleanor Close, Woburn in Bedfordshire. There is a dispensary at the main practice and the branch surgery that provides medicine for patients who live more than one mile from a pharmacy. As part of this inspection we visited both sites.
The provider is registered with CQC to deliver the Regulated Activities; diagnostic and screening procedures, maternity and midwifery services, surgical procedures and treatment of disease, disorder or injury. These are delivered from both sites.
Asplands Medical Centre is situated within the NHS Bedfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and provides services to 11,638 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.
There are three female GP partners, three male GP partners and one female salaried GP. There are six practice nurses, two health care assistants and two phlebotomists. These are supported by a practice manager (who is also a partner in the practice) and an experienced team of reception/administration staff. Four dispensers support the dispensary manager. The practice is a training practice, with three trainers and a whole practice team approach to educating GP registrars and Medical students.
The area has a higher than average number of patients aged of 65 and over, and fewer patients aged under 18 years old than the national average. The National General Practice Profile states that 93% of the practice population is from a white background with 7% of the population originating from black, Asian, mixed or other non-white ethnic groups. The practice has a small population of travellers
Information published by Public Health England, rates the level of deprivation within the practice population group as ten, on a scale of one to ten. Level one represents the highest levels of deprivation and level ten the lowest. However, the practice does serve areas of deprivation, to vulnerable groups such as travellers and homeless people.
Outside of practice opening hours, patients are directed to the local out of hours service through NHS 111.
Updated
30 August 2018
This practice is rated as good overall. This is the third inspection of Asplands Medical Centre. At our last inspection on 8 December 2016, the practice was rated as good for providing safe services and good overall.
The key questions are rated as:
Are services safe? – Good
Are services effective? – Good
Are services caring? – Good
Are services responsive? – Good
Are services well-led? – Good
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Asplands Medical Centre on 21 June 2018 as part of our inspection programme.
At this inspection we found:
- The practice had sustained and continued to improve the high level of achievement since the last inspection, and had further improved in areas including caring, responsiveness and well led.
- Learning identified from our previous inspection in June 2016 had been shared with the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and changes had been made to improve medicine systems in other practices.
- The practice had a highly effective and well managed quality improvement process in place to identify where they might improve. They had a continuous programme of audits and there was a cohesive practice approach to improvement. The practice performance in relation to the quality and outcome framework (QOF) was above the CCG and national average and exception reporting was below the CCG and national average.
- The strong leadership, embedded governance structure and culture were used to drive and improve the delivery of high-quality person-centred care. All staff were involved in the development of the practice and were proud of their achievements.
- The practice had clear systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. When incidents did happen, the practice learned from them and improved their processes.
- The practice routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided. Staff ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence- based guidelines.
- The national GP patient satisfaction data although statically comparable was consistently above the local and national averages for outcomes on the National GP Patient Survey published in July 2017. Some areas were higher than the January 2016 data. Patients reported they were truly respected and valued as individuals and were empowered as partners in their care, practically and emotionally, by an exceptional and distinctive service. There were several examples of where the practice had gone the extra mile for patients.
- Generally, patients found the appointment system easy to use and reported that they could access care when they needed it.
- Services were tailored to meet the needs of individual patients and were delivered in a way to ensure flexibility, choice and continuity of care. The practice understood the needs of the services users and regularly engaged in the local community.
- The practice had been responsible for setting up and continuing to support additional services that benefitted their patients.
- Care provided was reflective of the needs of the population including those who worked on the nearby safari park and the small population of travellers.
- There was a strong focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels of the organisation.
We saw areas of outstanding practice:
- We saw that the practice provided support to victims of human trafficking; they opened outside normal practice hours to provide this service. The practice had continued to work with other agencies such as the police and offered to provide care for those that require services outside of the usual core GP services.
- The practice had over many years brought various services to the practice to benefit patients and to save them travelling to other clinics or hospital some distant away. These services included aural care, wound care and physiotherapy. They had worked and engaged with the local community and voluntary agencies ensuring their patients benefit from the support that was available including transport and support for patients who had suffered or who were receiving treatment for cancer.