Archived: Queensbury Health Centre

Updated 14 May 2015

Queensbury Health Centre is registered with CQC to provide primary care services, which includes access to GPs, family planning, treatment of disease, disorder or injury, maternity and midwifery services and diagnostic and screening procedures. It provides GP services for patients living in the Queensbury area of Bradford. The practice has six GPs, a management team, practice nurses and healthcare assistants, administrative staff and cleaners.

The practice is open 8am to 6pm on Monday to Friday with a weekend opening of 7am to 1:15pm on a Saturday. Patients can book appointments in person, via the phone and online. Appointments can be booked in advance for the doctors and for the nursing clinics. When the practice was closed patients accessed the out of hours NHS 111 service.

The practice is part of NHS Bradford District CCG. It is responsible for providing primary care services to 11,124 patients. The female patient population of the practice makes up 50% of the practice population and 18% of all patients are over 65 years of age. The practice is meeting the needs of an increasingly elderly patient list size that is generally comprised of an equal number of women and men.

Updated 14 May 2015

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced inspection at Queensbury Health Centre on 11 February 2015. Overall the practice is rated as good.

We found the practice to be good for providing safe, well-led, effective, caring and responsive services. It was also good for providing services for older people, people with long term conditions, families, children and young people and the working age population.

Our key findings across all the population group areas we inspected were as follows:

• Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns, and to report incidents. Information about safety was recorded, monitored, appropriately reviewed and addressed.

• Risks to patients were assessed and managed, including those relating to recruitment checks.

• Patients’ needs were assessed and care was planned and delivered following best practice guidance. Staff had received training appropriate to their roles and any further training needs had been identified and planned.

• Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.

• Information about services and how to complain was available and easy to understand. Complaints would be addressed in a timely manner and the practice endeavoured to resolve complaints to a satisfactory conclusion.

• Patients said they found it easy to make an appointment with a named GP and that there was continuity of care, with urgent appointments available the same day.

• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.

• There was a clear leadership structure and staff felt supported by management. The practice proactively sought feedback from staff and patients.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

Updated 14 May 2015

The practice is rated as good for the population group of people with long term conditions. Emergency processes were in place and referrals made for patients in this group that had a sudden deterioration in health. When needed longer appointments and home visits were available. Patients had a named GP and structured annual reviews to check their health and medication needs were being met. For those people with the most complex needs the named GP worked with health and care professionals to deliver a multidisciplinary package of care.

All the patients with long term conditions such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, heart failure were invited to at least an annual review. If a more frequent review was required the practice nurse would discuss this with the individual patient. The practice had set up a recall programme to try and ensure patients were recalled appropriately. During each review for the long term conditions the practice nurses completed the relevant templates specific for each condition.

Updated 14 May 2015

The practice is rated as good for the population group of families, children and young people. Systems were in place for identifying and following-up children living in disadvantaged circumstances and those who were at risk. Patients told us and we saw evidence that children and young people were treated in an age appropriate way and recognised as individuals. Appointments were available outside of school hours and the premises were suitable for children and babies. We were provided with good examples of joint working with midwives and health visitors. Emergency processes were in place and referrals made for children and pregnant women who had a sudden deterioration in health.

The practice provides antenatal care to expectant mothers, and for this group of patients they encouraged uptake of the Whooping cough vaccination. Weekly antenatal clinics were provided by the midwives within the practice locality.

Childhood immunisations were available and undertaken by the practice nurses. The GPs performed the six week child assessments. The health visiting team provided weekly clinics for pre-school age children at both surgeries. The current uptake for immunisations in the under two year old group was 99% and the pre-school uptake rate was 93%.

Updated 14 May 2015

The practice is rated as good for the care of older people. Nationally reported data showed the practice had good outcomes for conditions commonly found amongst older people. The practice offered proactive, personalised care to meet the needs of the older people in its population and had a range of enhanced services, for example in dementia care. The practice was responsive to the needs of older people and where appropriate provided home visits.

Older people accounted for around a fifth of the practice population. The practice worked with the community matron and district nursing team in managing the health and care of this population, in particular patients who were unable to attend the practice or who resided in a nursing or care home.

To avoid unplanned admissions the practice held a register of those patients who had been identified as being at higher risk of admission to hospital. The practice was working with the top two percent of patients, 179 in total, who all had a nominated GP and an agreed care plan to manage their care. The practice used the Risk Stratification Tool provided by the CCG to identify this group of people. All the patients identified on the register were reviewed at least every three months by the patient’s allocated GP. Within this group of patients, any patients residing in a care/nursing home or sheltered accommodation who had attended or been admitted to hospital were discussed every month at the regular Monday practice meetings.

Updated 14 May 2015

The practice is rated as good for the population group of the working-age people including those recently retired and students. The needs of the working age population, those recently retired and students, had been identified and the practice had adjusted the services it offered to ensure these were accessible, flexible and offered continuity of care. The practice was proactive in offering online services as well as a full range of health promotion and screening which reflected the needs for this age group.

To assist the practice population who were workers, students or recently retired they currently offered a number of early morning appointment bookable via the practice website. In addition they also offered appointments on a Saturday morning, to those patients who were unable to attend during normal working hours.

The practice was currently working with public health, offering a NHS Health Check to those patients aged between 40 and 74 currently not identified as being on any clinical register, screening for cardiovascular risk and diabetes.

Updated 14 May 2015

The practice is rated as good for the population group of people experiencing poor mental health including people with dementia. The practice regularly worked with multi-disciplinary teams in the case management of people experiencing poor mental health including those with dementia. The practice had in place advance care planning for patients with dementia.

The practice had recently undertaken ‘searches’ to better identify patients suffering from dementia and ensured they were coded appropriately on the computer database. This group of patients were reviewed annually.

The practice also kept a register of those patients with chronic enduring mental health problems. This was to ensure these patients had a comprehensive care plan for their mental health. They were also considered by the practice a vulnerable group who needed annual reviews for their physical health needs.

Updated 14 May 2015

The practice is rated as good for the population group of people whose circumstances may make them vulnerable. The practice held a record of patients living in vulnerable circumstances including homeless people, travellers and those with learning disabilities. The practice offered longer appointments for people with learning disabilities.

The practice kept a register of people with learning difficulties living independently or in community group homes. They were all offered annual health checks. Another vulnerable group of people were those suffering from alcohol problems. A person is employed to work with people with alcohol problems.

The practice hosted a weekly session with a benefits advisor for patients requiring assistance with benefits and debts.

The practice undertook six to eight week review meetings with the health visitors to discuss any vulnerable children identified as being ‘at risk’.