• Doctor
  • GP practice

The Wellspring Surgery

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

Beam Street, Redfield, Bristol, Avon, BS5 9QY (0117) 955 7711

Provided and run by:
The Wellspring Surgery

Latest inspection summary

On this page

Background to this inspection

Updated 6 February 2019

The Wellspring Surgery is located in a modern purpose-built premise that occupy part of a Healthy Living Centre (HLC). The HLC is a community-led healthy living and wellbeing centre at the heart of Bristol. All practice patient services are based on the ground floor and provide full accessibility. The practice has good transport links and there is a pharmacy located within the HLC, along with a range of other health, welfare and social care services.

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 a single site.

The Wellspring Surgery is situated in Bristol within the Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group (BNSSG CCG) area and provides services to 9,100 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.

The provider is a partnership of three GPs registered with the CQC (updated in September 2017). The practice employs five salaried GPs and overall there are three male and five female GPs. The GPs are supported by a clinical pharmacist, a specialist nurse, two nurse practitioners, a practice nurse, three healthcare assistants (HCAs) and a team of management, IT, reception (care navigation) and administration staff. The practice participates with other GP practices in the Inner City and East locality network of GP practices. The Wellspring Surgery is a core teaching practice, providing learning opportunities for medical students across the all five years of the Bristol Medical School; and delivered annually a 3-week placement for 5th year medical students from the University of Bristol.

There are higher than average numbers of patients aged 18 or under and fewer patients aged 65 or over than the national average. A significant proportion of patients were families with young children. The National General Practice Profile indicates the practice patient population is of a significantly diverse ethnicity; Bristol City Council ward profiles from 2018 shows 59.6% Black and Minority Ethnic population . The practice had identified that patients who did not use English as their first language used 50 different languages. There was a significant rate of transition in the patient population, including refugees and asylum seekers. For example, there were over 1,450 new patient registrations in the last 12 months (16% of the 9,100 patients on the practice list).

Information published by Public Health England, rates the level of deprivation within the practice population group as one, on a scale of one to ten. Level one represents the highest levels of deprivation and level ten the lowest. Male life expectancy is 75.7 years compared to the national average of 79 years. Female life expectancy is 83 years, in line with the national average.

The Wellspring Surgery is open as per the hours below. The practice is open for telephone calls and routine and urgent appointments during these times.

  • Monday 08:00 – 20:00
  • Tuesday 08:00 - 18:30
  • Wednesday 07:00 - 18:30
  • Thursday 07:00 - 19:30
  • Friday 08:00 - 18:30
  • Saturday - 09:00 – 12:00 once every three months

The practice has opted out of providing Out-Of-Hours services to its own patients. Outside of normal practice hours, patients can access the NHS 111 service. Information about the Out-Of-Hours service was available on the practice website, in the patient registration pack, and as an answerphone message.

Overall inspection

Good

Updated 6 February 2019

At the last inspection in December 2014 we rated the provider as Good overall and in the safe, effective, caring responsive and well led domains. All population groups were rated as good.

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at The Wellspring Surgery on 11 December 2018 as part of our inspection programme. Following the inspection in December 2018 we have rated the practice as Good overall. All population groups were rated as good.

The key questions at this inspection are rated as:

• Are services safe? – Good

• Are services effective? – Good

• Are services caring? – Good

• Are services responsive? – Good

• Are services well-led? - 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 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.

We also rated the practice as good for providing safe, caring and effective services because:

  • The practice provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm.
  • Staff treated patients with kindness, respect and compassion. Feedback from patients was positive about the way staff treated people.
  • Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs.

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

  • Complete the implementation of arrangements for secure storage and management of blank prescription stationery.
  • Review arrangements for clinical correspondence received to ensure timely allocation to relevant clinicians, particularly when staff were absent or had left.
  • Continue to pursue improvements to raise rates of child immunisation; and cancer performance indicators including cervical cancer screening for eligible women.
  • Continue to make improvements to the patient survey results about general practice appointments and the healthcare professional being good or very good at listening to patients.

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

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP
Chief Inspector of General Practice