Background to this inspection
Updated
20 October 2021
Holbeach Medical Centre is located at:
Park Road
Holbeach
Lincolnshire
PE12 7EE
The provider is registered with CQC to deliver the Regulated Activities; diagnostic and screening procedures, maternity and midwifery services, family planning, treatment of disease, disorder or injury and surgical procedures.
The practice is situated within the Lincolnshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and delivers General Medical Services to a patient population of 7,831. The list size had reduced from 8,112 at the time of our last inspection through data cleansing resulting from the Covid 19 immunisation programme. The vast majority of these patients removed from the list were eastern European, believed to have left the UK.
The practice is part of a wider network of GP practices known as a Primary Care Network.
The practice has a dispensary which is available to 2,493 (31.8%) eligible patients who live more than 1.6km from a pharmacy.
Information published by Public Health England shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the sixth lowest decile (six of 10). The lower the decile, the more deprived the practice population is relative to others.
According to the latest available data, the ethnic make-up of the practice area is 98% White, 0.9% Asian and 0.1% Other. The practice has a considerable percentage of patients from eastern Europe and their familes, who are employed in horticulture, agriculture and food production in the area.
The practice has more older and less younger people than both CCG and National averages.
The provider is a partnership of two GPs. There is one salaried GP. The practice has a team of four nurses, one nurse practitioner and two healthcare support workers. They are supported by a team of dispensers, reception and administration staff.
Due to the enhanced infection prevention and control measures put in place since the pandemic and in line with the national guidance, most GP appointments were telephone consultations.
Out of hours services are provided by Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust.
Updated
20 October 2021
We carried out an announced inspection at Holbeach Medical Centre on 12 August 2021 and completed remote interviews prior to that.
Overall, the practice is rated as Good.
Set out the ratings for each key question
Safe - Good
Effective - Good
Caring - Good
Responsive - Good
Well-led - Good
Following our previous inspection on 4 September 2019 the practice was rated as Requires Improvement overall and for the key questions of Safe and Responsive. We rated all the population groups as Requires Improvement as the overarching issues affected all the population groups. The other key questions, effective, caring and well-led were rated as Good.
We identified that he practice should:
- Continue to review all patients in receipt of high- risk medicines.
- Maintain oversight and actively manage the process for summarising and re-coding new patient notes.
- Continue to review telephone access and appointment availability.
- Continue to review the process to identify additional carers.
The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Holbeach Medical Centre on our website at www.cqc.org.uk
Why we carried out this inspection
This inspection was a comprehensive inspection to follow up on:
• all key questions and population groups.
• ‘shoulds’ identified in previous inspection.
How we carried out the inspection/review
Throughout the pandemic CQC has continued to regulate and respond to risk. However, taking into account the circumstances arising as a result of the pandemic, and in order to reduce risk, we have conducted our inspections differently.
This inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to spend a minimum amount of time on site. This was with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements.
This included;
- Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing
- Completing clinical searches on the practice’s patient records system and discussing findings with the provider
- Reviewing patient records to identify issues and clarify actions taken by the provider
- Requesting evidence from the provider
- A shorter site visit
Our findings
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 key questions and 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 adjusted how it delivered services to meet the needs of patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. 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-centre care.
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