The New Medical Centre

Updated 21 December 2023

The New Medical Centre Medical Centre is located in Romford at:

264 Brentwood Road

Romford

Essex

RM2 5SU

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.

The practice is situated within the North East London Integrated Care System (ICS) and provides Personal Medical Services (PMS) to a patient population of about 9,920. This is part of a contract held with NHS England.

The practice is part of a wider network of GP practices called Marshall’s Primary Care Networks:

Information published by Office for Health Improvement and Disparities shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the ninth decile (nine 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 6.2% Asian, 88.8% White, 2.9% Black, and 2% Mixed.

There is a team of 2 GP partners and one GP who works on a Friday. The practice has two advanced nurse practitioners and one practice nurse supported by a health care assistant.. The GPs are supported at the practice by a team of reception/administration staff. The practice manager provides managerial oversight.

The practice is open between 8am to 6.30pm Monday to Friday with the exception of Wednesday when it is open until 8pm. The practice offers a range of appointment types including book on the day, telephone consultations and advance appointments.

Patients had access to out of hours access services that were operated by the local health federation and were open from Monday to Friday 6.30pm to 8pm and Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 8pm. Receptionists could book into these appointments directly.

Updated 21 December 2023

We carried out an announced focused assessment of The New Medical Centre 28 November 2023. Overall, the practice is rated as good.

Safe - not inspected, rating of good carried forward from previous inspection.

Effective - not inspected, rating of good carried forward from previous inspection.

Caring - not inspected, rating of good carried forward from previous inspection.

Responsive – Requires Improvement

Well-led - not inspected, rating of good carried forward from previous inspection.

Following our previous inspection in March 2019 the practice was rated good overall and for all key questions.

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

Why we carried out this inspection.

We carried out this assessment as part of our work to understand how practices are working to try to meet peoples demands for access and to better understand the experiences of people who use services and providers.

We recognise the work that GP practices have been engaged in to continue to provide safe, quality care to the people they serve. We know staff are carrying this out whilst the demand for general practice remains exceptionally high, with more appointments being provided than ever. However, this challenging context, access to general practice remains a concern for people.

Our strategy makes a commitment to deliver regulation driven by people’s needs and experiences of care. These assessments of the responsive key question include looking at what practices are doing innovatively to improve patient access to primary care and sharing this information to drive improvement.

How we carried out the review

This assessment was carried out remotely. It did not include a site visit.

The process included:

• Conducting an interview with the provider and members of staff using video conferencing.

• Reviewing patient feedback from a range of sources

• Requesting evidence from the provider.

• Reviewing data, we hold about the provider.

• Seeking information/feedback from relevant stakeholders

Our findings

We based our judgement of the responsive key question on a combination of:

• what we found when we met with the provider

• 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 had responded to patient feedback about access and had started to make changes. However, the practice patient feedback regarding access has remained below the national average since 2019.
• The practice used a triage system where reception staff prioritised patients and directed them to the most suitable clinician. However, there was no evidence some staff had completed training and no effective guidance for them to follow.

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

• Take action to ensure staff who work in reception have completed satisfactory training.
• Take action to implement effective triage and prioritisation guidance for staff to follow.
• Continue to respond to patient feedback and improve patient access.

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 Health Care