Doddington Medical Centre

Updated 16 January 2024

Doddington Medical Centre is located in March, Cambridgeshire at:

11D Benwick Road

March

Cambridgeshire

PE15 0TG

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 Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Integrated Care System (ICS) and delivers General Medical Services (GMS) (Personal Medical Services (PMS) to a patient population of about 13,200 patients. This is part of a contract held with NHS England.

The practice is part of a wider network South Fenland GP primary care network.

Information published by Office for Health Improvement and Disparities shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the seventh lowest decile (7 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 98.3% White, 0.4% Asian, 0.4% Black, 0.4% Mixed, and 0.1% Other.

The age distribution of the practice population closely mirrors the local and national averages. There are more working age and young people registered at the practices.

There is a team of 3 GP partners, 2 salaried GPs, 2 GP registered, 2 generalised advanced nurse practitioners, 2 specialist advanced nurse practitioners, 2 paramedics, 6 nurses, 3 healthcare assistants, 1 phlebotomist, 2 GP assistants, 2 care coordinators, 12 administration staff and 1 clinical pharmacist who provide cover at the practice. The practice manager provides managerial oversight.

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

Extended access is provided locally on weekdays by South Fenland Primary Care Network between 6 pm to 8 pm.

On weekdays after 8 pm, bank holidays, and weekends patients were advised to contact NHS 111 and an appointment could be made through Herts Urgent Care.

Updated 16 January 2024

We carried out a targeted assessment of Doddington Medical Centre on 27 November 2023 without a site visit. Overall, the practice is rated as good. We rated the key question of responsive as requires improvement.

Safe -good

Effective – good

Caring - good

Responsive – requires improvement

Well led – good

Following our previous inspection in November 2021, the practice was rated good overall and for all key questions. At this inspection, we rated the practice requires improvement for providing responsive services.

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

Why we carried out this inspection

We carried out this inspection as part of our GP responsive assessment

• Responsive question inspected

How we carried out the inspection/review

This included:

• Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing.
• Requesting evidence from the provider.

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 had positive, or no change reported within the GP national patient survey data since last year’s survey results. However, the practice was still below local and national averages.
• Same-day child access was tailored where possible to avoid missing time out of school.
• Patients were given options to self-book appointments to make access to the practice more streamlined.
• The provider recognised the rural location for patients and did not run set clinics to allow flexibility for appointments and allocate appointments more fluid.
• The practice was staffed to ensure appointment capacity was managed in a structured manner daily.
• Longer appointment times were made available for more complex patients to avoid multiple appointments.
• The practice had 341 carers and 28 young carers and provided priority access to appointments and welfare checks when required.
• The provider would involve all staff with complaints to gain feedback and opportunities to learn, including self-reflection.

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

• Continue to monitor and audit patient feedback to improve patient responses in the national GP patient survey.

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