Parkside Medical Centre

Background to this inspection

Updated 3 March 2017

Parkside Medical Centre provides primary medical services to approximately 14,250 patients in Boston, Lincolnshire. At the time of our inspection the practice consisted of four GP Partners and one salaried GP one advanced nurse practitioner, a nurse practitioner, three practice nurses , three health care assistants and a phlebotomist .They are supported by a team of management, administration, reception and cleaning staff.

The practice is located within the area covered by NHS Lincolnshire East Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). A CCG is an organisation that brings together local GP’s and experienced health professionals to take on commissioning responsibilities for local health services.

The practice has a General Medical Services contract. (The GMS contract is a contract between general practices and NHS England for delivering primary care services to local

Communities). It is not a dispensing practice.

Boston and its surrounds has a population of 66,500 (2014) and has seen a 14.5% increase over the proceeding ten years, making it the fastest expanding population in Lincolnshire.

The practice has a higher than average percentage of patients aged between 25 and 35 years of age. Many of these patients are migrant workers from Eastern Europe who are employed in food production and processing in the area.

Boston and South Holland have some of the highest levels of migrant workers in England, they being predominantly form eastern Europe, in particular, Lithuania, Poland and Latvia. Some 26% of the practice population do not have English as a first language.

Parkside Medical Centre has opted out of providing out-of-hours services to their own patients. The out-of-hours service is provided by Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust and is accessed by NHS111.

The practice had a website which we found had an easy layout for patients to use. It enabled them to access a range of information about the healthcare services provided by the practice.

The practice was located in a very large building that had recently been extended and provided treatment rooms on two levels, two surgical theatres and additional space for other healthcare providers. A community pharmacy was physically attached to the practice. The building had been carefully adapted to meet the needs of patients and carers with restricted mobility, vision and hearing impairment.

The practice is located in Boston town centre and benefits from ample car parking and level pedestrian access.

Overall inspection

Good

Updated 3 March 2017

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We had carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Parkside Medical Centre on 19 May 2016. The overall rating for the practice was requires improvement. The full comprehensive report on the May 2016 inspection can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Parkside Medical Centre on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

This inspection was an announced focused inspection carried out on 27 January 2017 to confirm that the practice had carried out their plan to meet the legal requirements in relation to the breaches in regulations that we identified in our previous inspection on 19 May 2016. This report covers our findings in relation to those requirements and also additional improvements made since our last inspection.

Overall the practice is now rated as Good.

Our key findings were as follows:

There were systems in place to ensure that patients were protected from the risks associated with the prescribing of medicines considered to pose an elevated risk.
There were clear systems in place to ensure that that safety alerts from the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency were dealt in a manner that promoted patient safety.
Guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence was available to all staff and GPs.
The practice had completed full cycle clinical audits and continued to do so.
The practice had taken positive steps to help staff identify carers and had increased the number of identified carers from 0.3% to 2.6% of the patient list.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP)

Chief Inspector of General Practice