• Doctor
  • GP practice

The Cornerstone Practice Also known as Cornerstone Practice

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

Shadsworth Surgery, Shadsworth Road, Blackburn, Lancashire, BB1 2HR (01254) 665664

Provided and run by:
The Cornerstone Practice

Latest inspection summary

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Background to this inspection

Updated 23 October 2019

The Cornerstone Practice is a provider partnership registered with the CQC to undertake the regulated activities of treatment of disease, disorder or injury, diagnostic and screening procedures, maternity and midwifery services, family planning and surgical procedures.

The service has a Christian foundation. The main practice location as registered with CQC is

Shadsworth Surgery (Shadsworth Road, Blackburn, BB1 2HR). The practice also has two further branch sites:

• Rhyddings Surgery (71 Union Road, Oswaldtwistle, Accrington, BB5 3DD)

• Lambeth Street Surgery (Lambeth Street, Audley, Blackburn, BB1 1LZ)

During this inspection we visited Shadsworth Surgery and Lambeth Street Surgery.

All sites have off road parking for patients and all are served by good public transport links.

The Cornerstone Practice is part of the NHS Blackburn with Darwen Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and provides services to 18,585 patients under the terms of a personal medical services (PMS) contract. This is a contract between general practices and NHS England for

delivering services to the local community.

The age distribution of the practice’s patient demographic indicates a greater proportion of younger patients live in the area when compared with local and national averages. For example, 7.6% of the practice population are aged four years or younger, compared to the local average of 6.5% and national average of 5.6%, with 27.8% percent of the practice’s population being 18 years or younger compared to 24.6% locally and 20.7% nationally. Conversely the practice caters for a lower proportion of older patients. For example the percentage of the practice’s population aged over 65 years is 10.6%, compared to the local average of 13.7% and national average of 17.3%.

The practice is staffed by seven GP partners (four male and three female) and six salaried GPs. The clinical team also includes two advanced nurse practitioners, six practice nurses, three health care assistants and a clinical pharmacist. The practice’s non-clinical team comprises a practice manager, quality manager and three site managers along with a team of receptionists, administrators and secretaries.

Outside normal surgery hours, patients are advised to contact the out of hour’s service, offered locally by the provider East Lancashire Medical Services.

Overall inspection

Good

Updated 23 October 2019

We carried out an announced comprehensive follow up inspection at The Cornerstone Practice on 28 August 2019. We undertook this inspection following an inspection in December 2018. At that time, we rated the service as Requires Improvement. We issued the provider with a requirement notice for a breach of regulation 17, good governance. The full report from our December 2018 inspection visit can be found here www.cqc.org.uk

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 had made improvements in the way they did pre-employment checks.
  • Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs.
  • The practice had made improvements to their quality assurance systems.
  • Patients commented that staff were caring, kind and professional.
  • Staff were well trained and competent in the delivery of good patient care.
  • The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centre care.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

  • Continue to develop a supervision and monitoring system for non-medical prescribers.
  • Improve systems to ensure emergency medicines are readily available.
  • Ensure that appraisals for staff are carried out in a timely manner.
  • Continue to develop a formal strategic plan for the practice.

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