The Lakes Medical Practice

Updated 27 February 2024

The Lakes Medical Practice is located in Salford at:

21 Chorley Road,

Swinton,

M27 4AF

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 Greater Manchester Integrated Care System (ICS) and delivers General Medical Services (GMS) to a patient population of about 10,090. This is part of a contract held with NHS England.

The practice is part of a wider network of GP practices, Swinton Primary Care Network (PCN).

Information published by Office for Health Improvement and Disparities shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the fourth lowest decile (four 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 88.5% White, 4.4% Asian, 3.4% Black, 2.4% Mixed and 1.4% Other.

The age distribution of the practice population closely mirrors the local and national averages.

There is a team of six GPs who provide cover at the practice. The practice has one Advanced Nurse Practitioner, four Practice Nurses, one Physician Associate (Physician associates (or PAs) are healthcare professionals with a generalist medical education who work alongside doctors. Providing medical care as an integral part of the multidisciplinary team), one Health Care Assistant, a Pharmacist, and a First Contact physiotherapist (first contact Physiotherapists provide patients with direct access to physiotherapists, most commonly for the assessment and management of musculoskeletal disorders (MSK), without the need for a prior assessment or referral from a GP). The practice is supported by a team of reception/administration staff. The practice manager and assistant practice manager are based at the main location to provide 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 by Swinton Primary Care Network, where late evening and weekend appointments are available. Out of hours services are provided by NHS 111.

Updated 27 February 2024

We carried out an announced assessment of The Lakes Medical Practice on 17 January 2024. The assessment focused on the responsive key question.

Following our previous inspection on 22 February 2019 the practice was rated good overall and for all key questions. The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for The Lakes Medical Practice on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

The practice continues to be rated as good overall as this was the rating given at the last comprehensive inspection. However, we have now rated the responsive key question as requires improvement as a result of the findings of this focused assessment.

Safe – not inspected

Effective - not inspected

Caring - not inspected

Responsive - requires improvement

Well-led - not inspected

Why we carried out this review

We carried out this assessment as part of our work to understand how practices are working to try to meet demand for access and to better understand the experiences of people who use services and providers.

We recognise the work that GP practices have been engaged in to continue to provide safe, quality care to the people they serve. We know colleagues are doing this while demand for general practice remains exceptionally high, with more appointments being provided than ever. In this challenging context, access to general practice remains a concern for people. Our strategy makes a commitment to deliver regulation driven by people’s needs and experiences of care. These assessments of the responsive key question include looking at what practices are doing innovatively to improve patient access to primary care and sharing this information to drive improvement.

How we carried out the review

This assessment was carried out remotely. It did not include a site visit.

The process included:

• Conducting an interview with the provider and members of staff using video conferencing.
• Reviewing patient feedback from a range of sources
• Requesting evidence from the provider.
• Reviewing data we hold about the service
• Seeking information/feedback from relevant stakeholders

Our findings

We based our judgement of the responsive key question on a combination of:

• what we found when we met with the provider
• information from our ongoing monitoring of data about services and
• information from the provider, patients, the public and other organisations.

We found that:

• During the assessment process, the provider highlighted improvements they had made to improve the responsiveness of the service for their patient population. The impact of these efforts were not yet reflected in the verified patient survey data. Patients could not always access care and treatment in a timely way.

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

• Continue to do internal patient surveys to evidence the impact of changes to the service on patient access and satisfaction.

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