Archived: Stowhealth

Updated 8 July 2019

Stowhealth provides a range of primary medical services in central Stowmarket. There is a dispensary that provides medicine for patients who live more than one mile from a pharmacy. The dispensary was not visited at this inspection.

The practice is a member of the Suffolk Primary Care partnership (SPC). SPC is a partnership of twelve local practices.

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

Stowhealth is situated within the NHS Ipswich and East Suffolk Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and provides services to approximately 20,000 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.

There are three female GP partners, six male GP partners and two female and one male salaried GPs. There are two nurse practitioners and ten female practice nurses, five health care assistants, one phlebotomist, one male paramedic and one male physician associate. These are supported by a practice manager and a business manager and an experienced team of reception/ administration staff. Stowhealth has a dispensary manager and lead dispenser, supported by a team of dispensers. The practice also employs a clinical pharmacist. The practice is a training practice, with three trainers and a whole practice team approach to educating GP registrars and medical students.

The practice are able to offer and book routine appointments at the GP+ service provided by the Suffolk GP Federation and operates from the practice and in other towns/villages including Ipswich, Bury St. Edmunds, Leiston, Wickham Market, Haverhill and Felixstowe. These appointments are available in the evening and at weekends.

When the practice is closed the emergency services are provided by Suffolk GP Federation C.I.C. and is accessed via the 111 services.

The area has a slightly higher than average number of patients aged 0 to four years old, and slightly fewer patients aged between 15 and 64 years than the national average. Information published by Public Health England, rates the level of deprivation within the practice population group as eight on a scale of one to ten. Level one represents the highest levels of deprivation and level ten the lowest. However, the practice does serve areas of deprivation and to vulnerable groups such as travellers and homeless people.

Updated 8 July 2019

This practice is rated as good overall. At our last inspection 4 October 2018, the practice was rated as good overall, with requires improvement for providing safe services. The practice was issued with a requirement notice for Regulation 12, safe care and treatment. This was because vaccines were not stored appropriately within refrigerators in the treatment rooms and the cold chain was not maintained within the recommended temperature range. We undertook an inspection on 19 June 2019 to check the practice had made the required improvements.

At this inspection we found:

• Improvements had been made to ensure vaccines were being recorded as being stored appropriately. A standard operating procedure for recording refrigerator temperatures had been written and implemented. The cold chain was recorded as being within the recommend temperature range and staff were aware of actions to take if temperatures were outside of the recommended range.
• Work had been completed to review the coding of carers on the practice’s computer system. The practice had identified issues with inappropriate coding and removed 172 records. At the time of this inspection, the practice had 299 patients who were carers, which was approximately 1.5% of the practice population.
• The practice had improved their system for ensuring patients notes were summarised in a timely way. A practice protocol was in place for summarising, although this did not include the quality assurance process. Quarterly audits were undertaken to ensure summarising was accurate, although the completion of identified actions were not documented.
• The practice premises were managed by a private company on behalf of the landlord. The company utilised NHS property services for contract building maintenance for the whole site, only part of which was rented by the practice. The practice had formalised arrangements to ensure they were updated on the outcomes of risk assessments and work completed as a result.

Whilst we found no breaches of regulations, the provider should:

• Document the quality assurance system in place for summarising, in the practice summarising policy. Actions identified and undertaken as a result of the summarising audits, should also be documented.

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

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BS BM BMedSci MRCGP

Chief Inspector of General Practice

Updated 15 November 2018

Updated 15 November 2018

Updated 15 November 2018

Updated 15 November 2018

Updated 15 November 2018

Updated 15 November 2018