The Care Quality Commission
  • Doctor
  • GP practice

Lime Grove Medical Centre

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

Lime Grove Walk, Matlock, Derbyshire, DE4 3FD (01629) 581586

Provided and run by:
Lime Grove Medical Centre

All Inspections

6 July 2023

During a monthly review of our data

We carried out a review of the data available to us about Lime Grove Medical Centre on 6 July 2023. We have not found evidence that we need to carry out an inspection or reassess our rating at this stage.

This could change at any time if we receive new information. We will continue to monitor data about this service.

If you have concerns about Lime Grove Medical Centre, you can give feedback on this service.

2 October 2019

During an inspection looking at part of the service

We carried out an announced focused inspection at Lime Grove Medical Centre on 2 October 2019 as part of our inspection programme.

We carried out an inspection of this service due to the length of time since the last inspection. The previous inspection took place in October 2014 and the report can be found on our website at www.cqc.org.uk. The practice was previously rated as good overall.

Following our annual review of the information available to us, including information provided by the practice, we focused our inspection on the following key questions:

  • Effective
  • Responsive
  • Well-led

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

  • Safe
  • Caring

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; the well-led domain was rated as being outstanding. We rated the practice as outstanding for the population groups of older people and mental health, and good for all other population groups.

We found that:

  • Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs.
  • The practice organised and delivered services to meet patients’ needs. Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.

We rated the practice as outstanding for providing well-led services because:

  • There was evidence of proactive leadership with a commitment to improve outcomes for both patients and staff. The partnership drove continuous improvement and innovation.
  • Objectives were stretching, challenging and innovative, whilst remaining achievable. There was a clear and proactive approach to seek out and embed new ways of providing care and treatment.
  • A collaborative approach was taken to work with other organisations to improve care outcomes.
  • Governance and performance management arrangements were proactively reviewed to reflect best practice.
  • Staff were proud of the practice as a place to work and spoke highly of the positive culture. There were high levels of constructive staff engagement, and staff at all levels were actively encouraged to raise concerns.

In addition, we identified the following outstanding features:

  • There was an emphasis on quality improvement within the practice. Topics were selected based on identified areas for development, new guidance or a desire to enhance services to patients. We saw that projects were based on recognised guidance and were planned with inbuilt reviews and ongoing staff and patient feedback where appropriate. For example, an appointment and access improvement programme was undertaken in response to access difficulties. In the first six months, the average time to book a routine appointment fell from 22 days to 10, and same day access accounted for 21% of appointment capacity whereas there had been none six months previously. Additionally, there was reduced pressure on telephone triage by 21%.
  • The practice had created their own tool called Sortcode to identify older and vulnerable patients based upon an analysis of hospital admissions, Accident and Emergency (A&E) attendances, visits to see patients in their own homes, out of hours contacts, and case management over a defined timescale. Those identified were added to the community matron caseload and were also reviewed by one of the practice’s own nurse practitioners whose role was focused on supporting patients within their own home. The practice was able to demonstrate the impact of this by comparative data for their locality and the CCG. For example:
    • out-of-hours activity for 2018-19 showed contacts at 29.9 per 1,000 patients compared to the CCG figure of 46.8
    • emergency admission rates from April to October 2019 were 69.7 per 1,000 patients, compared to the locality average of 82.1.
    • A&E attendances from April to October 2019 were 127.1 per 1,000 patients compared to the locality average of 160.

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

23 October 2014

During a routine inspection

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We inspected Lime Grove Medical Centre on 23 October 2014. We inspected this service as part of our new comprehensive inspection programme.

Overall, we rated the practice as good, although there was one area where the practice should make improvements. Our key findings were as follows:

  • Patients reported good access to the practice and continuity of care, with urgent appointments available the same day.
  • Patients said, and our observations confirmed, they were treated with kindness and respect.
  • Patient outcomes were at or above average for the locality and good practice guidance was referenced and used routinely.
  • The practice was visibly clean and tidy.
  • The practice learned from incidents and took action to prevent a recurrence.

We saw an area of outstanding practice including:

The practice had developed a tool for care coordination and case management called HAVOC (Hospital admissions, A&E attendances, Visits, Out of Hours for Case management).

However, there were areas of practice where the provider needs to make improvements.

The provider should :

Check emergency medicines and have systems in place to ensure all medicines within the practice are in date.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice