Swineshead Medical Group

Updated 19 December 2023

Swineshead Medical Group provides primary medical services to 8,600 patients in a rural area of Lincolnshire. The catchment area is 13 miles by 27 miles and covers some isolated rural communities. Public transport links in the area are generally poor.

The service is an accredited training practice for GP Registrars (fully qualified doctors who wish to become general practitioners).

Care and treatment are provided by three GP partners, three salaried GPs, an advanced nurse practitioner, three practice nurses, a care co-ordinator, two healthcare support workers and a phlebotomist. They are supported by a team of dispensers, receptionists and administrative staff. There are three to four GP Registrars attached to the practice.

The practices' services are commissioned by NHS Lincolnshire Integrated Care Board (ICB) under a General Medical Services contract. The practice has a higher percentage of patients aged 65 and over than both the ICB and national average. Life expectancy for both males and females is similar ICB and national averages. 98.7% of patients are described as white.

The practice lies in decile six on a scale of one to ten where ten represents the least deprived areas. The practice is housed in a purpose-built surgery. The building provides good access on the ground floor level to all clinical areas with automatic doors at the entrance, hand rails, accessible toilets and ample car parking facilities.

The practice was able to offer dispensing services to those patients on the practice list who lived more than one mile (1.6km) from their nearest pharmacy. This equated to 33% of their practice population.

Swineshead Medical Group uses the out of hours service provided by the Primary Care Network. They provide additional clinics at the practice to improve access for patients. These are Tuesday/Thursday 6pm -9pm and Saturday 9am-2pm. Extended Access is also available Monday to Friday from 6pm-9pm and Saturdays from 9am 2pm at The Sidings Practice in Boston.

Updated 19 December 2023

We undertook a targeted assessment of the responsive key question at Swineshead Medical Group. The rating for the responsive key question is Good. As the other domains were not reviewed during this assessment, the rating of Good will be carried forward from the previous inspection and the overall rating of the service will remain 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 - Good

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

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

Why we carried out this inspection

We carried out a targeted assessment of the responsive key question. Targeted assessments enable us to focus on certain key questions to explore particular aspects of care.

How we carried out the inspection/review

• This assessment was carried out without a site visit.
• Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing.
• Requesting evidence from the provider and reviewing the appointment system

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:

• Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way and the provider had implemented systems and processes as a result of patient feedback.
• National GP patient survey results relating to access were above national averages
• Complaints were satisfactorily handled in a timely manner.

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