Blurton Medical Practice Also known as Practice of Dr J A Mir

Updated 31 October 2022

Blurton Medical Centre is located in Stoke on Trent at:

Blurton Health Centre,

Ripon Road, Blurton,

Stoke On Trent

ST3 3BS

The provider is registered with CQC to deliver the Regulated Activities; diagnostic and screening procedures, maternity and midwifery services and treatment of disease, disorder or injury and surgical procedures.

The practice is situated within the Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Integrated Care System (ICS) with its Integrated Care Board (ICB) and delivers General Medical Services (GMS) to a patient population of 2,563. This is part of a contract held with NHS England.

The practice is part of a wider network of GP practices South Stoke West Primary Care Network (PCN).

Information published by Public Health England shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the lowest decile (one of 10). The lower the decile, the more deprived the practice population is relative to others. PHE was replaced by UK Health Security Agency and Office for Health Improvement and Disparities.

According to the latest available data, the ethnic make-up of the practice area is 2.8% Asian, 93.9% White, 1.5% Black, 1.5% Mixed, and 0.5% Other.

The age distribution of the practice population shows that the practice has a higher number of younger people registered than the local and national averages.

There is a GP partner who is supported when required by regular locum GPs. The practice clinical staff include an advanced nurse practitioner (ANP), two practice nurses (PN) and a health care support worker (HCSW). The practice management team includes a practice manager/business partner and administrative/reception staff.

The practice is open between 8.30am to 6pm Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. On Thursdays the practice is open between 8.30am to 1pm. Patients wanting to be seen Thursday afternoons are triaged by the 111 service and seen by the local Out of Hours provider if necessary. The practice offers a range of appointment types including book on the day, telephone consultations and advance appointments.

Extended access is provided locally via the Primary Care Network who employ North Staffordshire GP Federation services, where late evening and weekend appointments are available. Out of hours services are provided by NHS 111.

Updated 31 October 2022

We carried out an announced focused inspection at Blurton Medical Centre on 28 and 30 September 2022. Following our review of the information available to us, including information provided by the practice, we focused our inspection on the following key questions: safe, effective and well-led. Due to assurances we received from our review of information, we carried forward the ratings for the following key questions: caring and responsive from our last inspection in June 2019.

Overall, the practice is rated as good.

Safe - Requires improvement

Effective- Good

Caring -Good

Responsive – Good

Well-led - Good

Following our previous inspection on 17 June 2019, the practice was rated good overall and for effective, caring, responsive and well-led key questions but requires improvement for providing safe services. We found the areas identified for improvement at the last inspection had been met.

The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Blurton Medical Centre on our website at www.cqc.org.uk

Why we carried out this inspection

We carried out this inspection to follow up breaches of regulation from a previous inspection.

• The issues identified in the inspection in June 2019.
• Key questions safe, effective and well-led.
• Follow up on a Requirement Notice breach in Regulation 12 HSCA (RA) Regulations 2014 Safe care and treatment.
• Three best practice recommendations.

How we carried out the inspection/review

This inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to spend a minimum amount of time on site.

This included:

• Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing.
• Completing clinical searches on the practice’s patient records system (this was with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements).
• Reviewing patient records to identify issues and clarify actions taken by the provider.
• Requesting evidence from the provider.
• A short site visit.
• Staff questionnaires.

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 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.
• 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.

We have rated this practice requires improvement for providing safe services. This is because:

• The clinical searches identified deficiencies in the system of responding to historic patient safety alerts.
• We found there were some gaps in the management of patients who required regular monitoring and reviews.

We found a breach of regulations. The provider must:

• Ensure care and treatment is provided in a safe way to patients.

The provider should:

• Implement a strategy to improve, where able, the uptake of the aged five year olds childhood vaccinations and of cervical screening.
• Implement clinical audit second cycles to demonstrate if improvements and changes in practice had improved patient outcomes and become embedded in practice.
• Consider a review of the occupational health documentation to be assured that the information in their fit for role statement contains full immunisation and vaccination histories for all staff.
• Consider an induction system for temporary nursing staff tailored to their role.
• Formalise the non-medical prescriber competency and supervision sessions.
• Consider a review of the practice DNACPR record keeping processes.
• Consider implementing a measurement of the progress made against their practice strategy.

Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

Chief Inspector of Hospitals and Interim Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services