Background to this inspection
Updated
28 November 2018
Bridge Medical Centre offers general medical services to approximately 11,000 registered patients.
Care and treatment is delivered by five GP partners. Three of the GPs are female and two are male. The practice employs a team of four practice nurses, one healthcare assistant and two phlebotomists. GPs and nurses are supported by the practice business manager, a finance manager and a team of reception, administration and secretarial staff.
The range of services include management of long-term conditions, and clinics covering a wide range of services for patients including asthma/COPD clinics, diabetes clinics, hypertension clinics, well woman/man checks, family planning services, weight management services, smoking cessation advice, blood pressure monitoring, blood tests, ECGs, vaccinations and immunisations, maternity care, and child development as well as travel health, safe travel tips, travel vaccinations and blood tests.
The practice is part of NHS Crawley Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). Data available to the Care Quality Commission (CQC) shows the scores for income deprivation affecting both adults and children are lower than the CCG and national averages.
The CQC registered manager at the time of the inspection was Dr Rhoda Bartman. The registered activities are:
Diagnostic and screening procedures
Family planning
Maternity and midwifery services
Surgical procedures
Treatment of disease, disorder and injury
Services are provided from:
Bridge Medical Centre
Wassand Close
Three Bridges,
Crawley
West Sussex
RH10 1LL.
The practice is open from 8.30am to 6.30pm on weekdays. The practice also provides extended hours appointments on Tuesday evening each week from 6.30pm to 8.00pm.
Further information relating to the practice can be found on their website, www.bridgemedicalcentre.co.uk.
Updated
28 November 2018
This practice is rated as Good overall. (Previous rating 25 January 2018 – Requires Improvement)
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 carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Bridge Medical Centre on 25 September 2018 as part of our inspection programme. It was also to follow up on breaches of regulations.
At our last inspection on 15 November 2017 we found the provider was in breach of regulations in that:
- The provider had not ensured appropriate steps were taken to mitigate the risk of Legionella.
- The provider did not have a regular programme of quality improvement such as clinical audit to review clinical intervention against national and local guidelines and established best practice.
- Recruitment information required by regulation was not always in place prior to the appointment of staff.
At this inspection we found:
- The practice had clear systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. When incidents did happen, the practice learned from them and improved their processes.
- The practice routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided. It ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence- based guidelines.
- A programme of quality improvement including clinical audit was established in the practice.
- Staff involved and treated patients with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
- Not all patients found the appointment system easy to use and reported that there were difficulties in accessing appointments.
- There was a focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels of the organisation.
- Recruitment practices ensures information required by regulation was in place prior to the appointment of staff.
The areas where the provider should make improvements are:
- Continue to review and improve telephone access and appointment availability and monitor patient satisfaction levels in respect of these areas.
- Review the current level of feedback from the secondary care anti-coagulation service to seek reassurances for practice clinicians as the accountable prescribers.
Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGPChief Inspector of General Practice
Please refer to the detailed report and the evidence tables for further information.