Background to this inspection
Updated
17 September 2021
Spinney Surgery is located in St Ives, Cambridgeshire at:
Ramsey Road
St Ives
Cambridgeshire
PE27 3TP
The practice provides services for approximately 10,500 patients. It holds a General Medical Services contract and is a teaching practice for GP registrars. The practice dispenses medicines to those patients eligible to receive this service. We inspected the dispensary as part of this inspection.
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 part of a wider primary care network (PCN) of GP practices St Ives Primary Care Network.
The practice has three GP partners (1 male and 2 female) and a practice manager. The practice employs four salaried GPs (1 male, 3 female), one female GP retainer, six practice nurses, one advanced nurse practitioner, five health care assistants and an emergency care practitioner. The clinical team is supported by a number of secretarial, reception and administrative staff. There are two members of dispensary staff. It is a training practice and currently has five trainee GPs as well as a GP on the international GP transfer scheme. The practice is open between the hours of 8am and 6pm, Monday to Friday. The practice offers extended hours appointments in the mornings and on evenings and weekends through a Federation of local practices. Outside of practice opening hours, patients are able to access pre-bookable morning appointments for smears and blood tests and evening appointments for carers and patients with the care co-ordinator.
Out of hours is provided by Herts Urgent Care, by patients dialling the NHS 111 service.
Due to the enhanced infection prevention and control measures put in place since the COVID-19 pandemic and in line with national guidance, most GP appointments are telephone consultations. If the GP needs to see a patient face-to-face then the patient is offered an appointment.
Updated
17 September 2021
We carried out an announced inspection at Spinney Surgery on 26 August 2021. Overall, the practice is rated as Good.
Safe - Good
Effective - Good
Well-led – Good
Following our previous inspection on 25 September 2019, the practice was rated as requires improvement overall and also for providing safe, effective and well led services. The practice was rated as good for caring and responsive services.
The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Spinney Surgery on our website at www.cqc.org.uk
Why we carried out this inspection
This inspection was a focused follow-up inspection:
- We inspected the Safe, Effective and Well-led key questions.
- We followed up on breaches of regulations identified at our previous inspection to ensure the required action had been taken.
The information we received and reviewed did not indicate the previous rating of good for providing caring and responsive services was affected and therefore we did not inspect these key questions and the ratings for providing caring and responsive services are carried over.
How we carried out the inspection
Throughout the pandemic CQC has continued to regulate and respond to risk. However, taking into account the circumstances arising as a result of the pandemic and in order to reduce risk, we have conducted our inspections differently.
This included:
- Conducting staff interviews using staff questionnaires
- Completing clinical searches on the practice’s patient records system and discussing findings with the provider
- Reviewing patient records to identify issues and clarify actions taken by the provider
- Requesting evidence from the provider
- A site visit
Our findings
We found:
- Safe and effective care was delivered to patients. The practice had made and sustained the improvements required to address the concerns identified in our last inspection.
- The practice had met the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, they had taken action to redesign the patient flow within the building. Staff were proud to have worked with the practice to continue to deliver care and treatment to patients.
- We found the practice had clear and effective systems to ensure patients on medicines received regular monitoring in a timely manner.
- The practice had developed the practice intranet to provide easy, current and relevant information to staff. Staff gave positive feedback.
- The practice had developed a post COVID-19 pandemic recovery action plan to review and improve their recall systems to ensure patients received appropriate routine reviews.
We did not find any breaches of regulations; however, the provider should:
- Complete the review of staff roles and responsibilities to ensure the non - clinical staff who require it are trained to safeguarding level 2.
- Formalise the practice system and process to demonstrate that the competency of staff has been assessed.
- Implement and monitor the action plan to address the backlog of paper medical records to be summarised.
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
Working age people (including those recently retired and students)
Updated
17 September 2021
People experiencing poor mental health (including people with dementia)
Updated
17 September 2021