Background to this inspection
Updated
27 August 2021
Beacon Medical Practice is a GP practice which provides a range of primary medical services to 20,179 patients in Skegness and neighbouring villages. The practice has one location registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC). This is at Beacon Medical Practice, Churchill Avenue, Skegness, Lincolnshire. PE25 2RN.
There are branch surgeries at;
Beacon Medical Practice Ancaster Avenue, Chapel St Leonards, PE24 5SL and
Beacon Medical Practice Ingoldmells, Skegness Road, Ingoldmells, Lincolnshire, PE25 1JL.
We visited all three surgeries as part of our inspection.
The provider of services is registered with the Care Quality Commission as Beacon Medical Practice which is partnership.
The provider is registered to provide the regulated activities of;
- Diagnostic and screening procedures
- Family planning services
- Maternity and midwifery services
- Surgical procedures
- Treatment of disease, disorder or injury
The practice website is www.beaconmedicalpractice.com
Services are commissioned by NHS Lincolnshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG).
The service is provided by four GP partners, three salaried GPs, one GP Registrar, four clinical practitioners, one emergency care practitioner, three practice nurses, one anti-coagulation practitioner, six health care assistants, two pharmacists, a dispensary team leader and dispensers. They are supported by a practice manager and a team of reception and administration staff.
The percentage of the practice’s patients aged 65 and over is 29.2% (2020), higher than both the CCG average of 23.1% and the England average of 17.5%. The percentage of the practice’s patients aged 18 and under is 16.6%, lower than both the CCG average of 18.2% and the England average of 20.6%. This has remained largely the same in the last five years.
Life expectancy for males (75.7) and for females (80.0) is below the England averages of 79.5 for males and 83.1 for females.
The practice’s calculated Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) score is 45.5, much higher than the CCG average (26.5) and the England average (21.7). The deprivation score has increased from 43.8 in 2015. The practice lies within the first decile of deprivation, where one is the most deprived and ten the least deprived.
In 2020, 78.6% of the practice’s population responded to the GP patient Survey stating they had a long-term health condition, an increase from 59.6% in 2018. This is much higher than the CCG average of 57.0% and England average of 52.4%.
Under normal circumstances there are a high number of temporary residents who use the services of the practice, particularly between April and September. The number varies year on year but is typically between 6 and 10,000 patient registrations per annum. However due to the restrictions brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, visitor numbers to the area had been much reduced and there had been a significant decrease in list size from 22,068 as a result of the registration condition imposed upon the practice following the inspection in November 2019.
The practice was able to offer dispensing services to those patients who lived more than one mile (1.6km) from their nearest pharmacy. There are dispensaries located at the branch surgeries at Chapel St Leonards and Ingoldmells. The practice can dispense to 1,370 eligible patients.
The practice has opted out of the requirement to provide GP consultations when the surgery is closed. The out-of-hours service is provided by Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust which can be accessed through NHS111.
Updated
27 August 2021
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Beacon Medical Practice on 6 and 10 August 2021.
At our previous inspection on 20 October 2020, we rated it as inadequate for providing responsive services. It was rated as requires improvement for providing caring and well led services. It was rated as good for providing safe and effective services. It was rated as requires improvement overall. As the practice was already in Special Measures following its November 2019 inspection, it remained so.
We rated the practice as requires improvement for caring because:
- Feedback from patients on NHS Choices, the CCG listening clinic and GP Patient Survey showed dissatisfaction.
We rated the practice as inadequate for providing responsive services because;
- Patients reported that they found it difficult to access the service by telephone and were dissatisfied with their experience.
- The practice could not demonstrate they had taken any action to address the issues.
We rated the practice as requires improvement for providing well-led services because:
- The practice did not have clear and effective processes for managing risks, issues and performance.
- There was limited evidence that the practice involved the public, staff and external partners to sustain high quality and sustainable care.
We undertook this inspection of this service on 6 and 10 August 2021 to see if enough improvements had been made for the practice to come out of Special Measures. We found that the issues had been addressed and the practice had made significant improvements.
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 for all key questions, good overall and good for all population groups.
- The practice provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm.
- Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs.
- Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
- The practice adjusted how it delivered services to meet the needs of patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.
- The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centred care.
Whilst we found no breaches of regulations, the provider should:
- Record alerts regarding safeguarding on the records of parents/household adult family members of children with safeguarding concerns and on the records of all adults with safeguarding concerns.
- Establish a consistent approach to monitoring and recording the temperatures of fridges used to store medicines.
- Review the process and control of blank prescription stationery.
- Ensure that annual long-term condition reviews are taking place now that COVID-19 restrictions are easing and put in place actions to improve QOF indicator achievements, including providing single appointments for multiple long- term condition reviews.
- Ensure that where learning from concerns, complaints and significant events had been identified, evidence of its dissemination to staff was recorded.
- The practice should continue to encourage cervical cancer screening and childhood immunisations.
- Continue to seek patient feedback and improve satisfaction levels with the services provided.
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I am taking this service out of special measures. This recognises the significant improvements that have been made to the quality of care provided by this service.
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