The Alexandra Practice

Updated 11 March 2019

The Alexandra Practice is located at 365 Wilbraham Road, Manchester. The practice is part of the NHS Manchester Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and provides services under a General Medical Services contract with NHS England. It has 6043 patients on its register. Information about the practice is available on their website at addresswww.thealexandrapractice.co.uk

The Alexandra Practice is situated in a busy residential area with mainly on street parking. The building was a former residential property. It offers eight consultation rooms including two treatment rooms; the majority of which are located on the first floor. The practice has a chair stair lift to assist those with mobility issues. The practice also offered patients a downstairs consultation room if the chair stair lift was not appropriate for use.

The practice has two male and two female GP partners, one female salaried GP and one male locum GP. The GPs are supported by one practice nurse, one assistant health care practitioner, a practice manager, an assistant practice manager and a team of administrative / reception staff.

The surgery accepts telephone calls from 8.00am Monday to Friday and the surgery opens from 08:30am until 6pm. Between 6pm and 6.30pm callers to the practice are diverted to the Out of Hours service. The practice provides extended access Thursday mornings between 7am and 8am. The practice participates in the Manchester Extended Access service and can offer patients appointments with a GP, nurse and health care assistant during the evenings and at the weekends at designated ‘hub’ locations.

Out of hours services are accessed via NHS 111.

The practice is a teaching practice supporting newly qualified doctors and is a training practice for doctors training to be a GP.

Information published by Public Health England rates the level of deprivation within the practice population group as level three on a scale of one to 10. Level one represents the highest levels of deprivation and level 10 the lowest.

The numbers of patients in the different age groups on the GP practice register is generally similar to the averages for GP practices in England. The practice has a higher percentage (21.8%) of patients under the age of 18 years, compared with the England average of 20.7%. The percentage of its population over the age of 65 years is lower at 10.6% than the England average of 17.3%.

The practice has 71.9% of its population with a status of being in paid work or in full-time education, which is higher than the CCG average (63.9%) and the England average (61.9%). A total of 1.5% of the practice population is unemployed which is below the CCG average (7.5%) and the England average (4.3%).

The practice provides treatment of disease, disorder or injury and diagnostic and screening procedures as its regulated activities

The percentage of its population over the age of 65 years is lower at 10.6% than the England average of 17.3%.

The practice has 71.9% of its population with a status of being in paid work or in full-time education, which is higher than the CCG average (63.9%) and the England average (61.9%). A total of 1.5% of the practice population is unemployed which is below the CCG average (7.5%) and the England average (4.3%).

The practice provides treatment of disease, disorder or injury and diagnostic and screening procedures as its regulated activities.

Updated 11 March 2019

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at The Alexandra Practice on 6 February 2019.

At the last inspection in August 2015 we rated the practice as good overall.

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 and good for all population groups.

We found that:

• 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.
• Staff involved and treated patients with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
• The practice was responsive to needs of its patients including vulnerable patients. They promoted access to a range of health and wellbeing services including Healthy Manchester, Buzz, and Be Well. The practice had a library of information resources that patients had easy access to.
• The practice did not have a defibrillator available at the surgery. The practice supplied a risk assessment which detailed the actions the practice staff team would take to respond to a cardiac arrest.
• There was a focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels of the organisation.

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

• Review and consider the Resuscitation Council (UK) guidance which indicates an automated external defibrillator (AED) should be available within a primary care setting for immediate use.
• Undertake a regular review of the risk assessment for those emergency medicines not held by the practice.
• Implement the planned improvement in facilities in consultation rooms to improve infection control and prevention.
• Continue to promote and develop the patient participation group.

Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP

Chief Inspector of General Practice