Conner and Partners - Care Quality Commission

Background to this inspection

Updated 30 May 2017

Conner and Partners is located in a purpose built medical centre in the semi-rural village of Hullbridge in the borough of Rochford, in Essex; the practice provides services for

6855 patients.

The practice holds a General Medical Services (GMS) contract and provides GP services commissioned by NHS England and Castlepoint and Rochford Clinical Commissioning Group. A GMS contract is one between NHS England and the practice where elements of the contract such as opening times are standardised.

The practice provides a range of core services including:

Childhood and adult vaccinations and immunisations
Cervical screening
Diabetes care
Asthma and COPD care
Mental health.

The practice provides a range of enhanced services

including:

Ambulatory BP checks
Minor injuries a minor surgery.
Senior health checks
Learning disability health checks.
Smoking cessation.

Enhanced services are those which require an enhanced level of provision above what is required under core GMS contracts.

The practice is managed by three GP partners who hold financial and managerial responsibility. One of the GP partners is the Registered Manager. A Registered Manager is a person who is registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the practice is run. The practice also employs one salaried GP. In total one male and three female GPs work at the practice.

The practice is a GP training practice. Any doctors who wish to become GPs need to undertake specialist training. The practice’s GPs have undertaken extra qualifications as GP trainers. Doctors who are training to become GPs are called Registrars and are fully qualified and experienced doctors. The practice also employs three practice nurses and one healthcare assistant. In addition the practice employs a team of receptionists and administrative staff.

The practice is open from 8am to 6.30pm on Mondays to Fridays. Appointments are available from 8am to 12pm and 3pm to 5.45pm. The practice does not provide early morning or late evening appointments. However weekend appointments are available for patients via a local initiative which the practice participates in.

The practice has opted out of providing GP out of hour’s services. Unscheduled out-of-hours care is provided by IC24 and patients who contact the surgery outside of opening hours are provided with information on how to contact the service.

Overall inspection

Good

Updated 30 May 2017

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Conner and Partners on 23 June 2016. The overall rating for the practice was good with requires improvement for the ‘Safe’ domain. The full comprehensive report for this inspection can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Conner and Partners on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

We then carried out a desk-based focused inspection on 27 April 2017 to confirm that the practice were now meeting the legal requirements in relation to the breaches of regulations that we identified in our previous inspection on 23 June 2016. This report covers our findings in relation to those requirements and also additional improvements made since our last inspection.

Overall the practice is rated as good, with the ‘Safe’ domain now rated as good.

Our key findings were as follows:

Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks were in place for all staff including those non-clinical staff who acted as chaperones.
The recruitment policy and procedures followed available guidance.
Staff records had been reviewed and evidenced appropriate staff’s hepatitis B immunity status.
Arrangements for monitoring staff training meant that staff undertook relevant, periodic training updates.
Complaints information was easily available to patients.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP)

Chief Inspector of General Practice