• Doctor
  • GP practice

University Medical Centre

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

Quarry House, North Road, Claverton Down, Bath, Avon, BA2 7AY (01225) 789100

Provided and run by:
University Medical Centre

Latest inspection summary

On this page

Background to this inspection

Updated 30 January 2020

University Medical Centre is located in the city of Bath and is one of 25 GP practices within the Bath and North East Somerset (BaNES) Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). The practice is part of the evolving ‘Unity’ Primary Care Network (PCN) with two other GP practices; and works closely with the 'Bath Independents' PCN made up of three other local GP practices. The practice provides services to 14,400 patients under the terms of a personal medical services (PMS) contract. This is a contract between general practices and the CCG for delivering services to the local community.

The provider is registered with CQC to deliver the Regulated Activities: diagnostic and screening procedures; family planning; maternity and midwifery services; surgical procedures; and treatment of disease, disorder or injury. These are delivered from one location at:

University Medical Centre, Quarry House, North Road, Claverton Down, Bath, BA2 7AY.

The provider is a partnership of two GP partners (one male and one female) and employs a salaried GP and up to six locum GPs during the university term time. The nursing team includes two nurse practitioners, a practice nurse prescriber and one health care assistant (HCA). They are supported by a practice manager and an administrative team. The practice is a teaching practice for medical students. There were no medical students present on the day of this inspection.

The patient list predominantly (around 90%) includes students and staff at the university, many of whom are international students; and there is a significant number of patients (around 4,000) registered and de-registered each year. Many international students are unfamiliar with NHS services and the practice provides advice and guidance to assist them. The practice also provides care for regular transient groups of people who attend conferences at the university campus during academic holiday periods.

There are very few registered patients under the age of 18 years or over the age of 65 years. The National General Practice Profile states that 7.5% of the practice population is from an Asian background, with a further 5.4% of the population originating from black, mixed or other non-white ethnic groups. Information published by Public Health England, rates the level of deprivation within the practice population group as ten, on a scale of one to ten. Level one represents the highest levels of deprivation and level ten the lowest.

The practice does not provide out-of-hours services to its patients and when closed patients can access the local out-of-hours service provider via NHS 111. Contact information for this service is available in the practice and on the practice website.

Overall inspection

Good

Updated 30 January 2020

We carried out an announced focused inspection at University Medical Centre on 7 November 2019 as part of our inspection programme.

We carried out an inspection of this service following our annual review of the information available to us including that provided by the practice. Our review indicated that there may have been a significant change to the quality of care provided since the last inspection.

This inspection focused on the following key questions: Effective and Well Led; and all patient population groups except Older People.

Because of the assurance received from our review of information we carried forward the ratings for the following key questions:

  • Safe - Good
  • Caring - Good
  • Responsive - Good

and for the Older People population group – Good.

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 have rated this practice as good overall and good for all population groups inspected.

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.
  • The practice organised and delivered services to meet patients’ needs. 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.

At the last inspection in 2016 we found areas where the provider should make improvements including with regard to health and safety audit actions; staff HR records; and emergency equipment and medicines.

At this inspection, we found that the provider had satisfactorily addressed these areas.

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

  • Review arrangements for quality improvement, including clinical audits. We saw only one audit had a second audit cycle completed in order to assess the benefits of changes made from the first audit.
  • Continue to focus on arrangements to improve the uptake of cervical cancer screening for eligible patients.

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

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP

Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care