Chelmer Village Surgery

Updated 13 October 2022

Chelmer Village Surgery is located in Chelmsford at:

Ashton Place

Chelmer Village

Chelmsford

CM2 6ST

The provider is registered with CQC to deliver the Regulated Activities: diagnostic and screening procedures, maternity and midwifery services, family planning, treatment of disease, disorder or injury and surgical procedures.

The practice is situated within the Mid and South Essex Integrated Care System (ICS) and delivers General Medical Services (GMS) to a patient population of about 4,900. This is part of a contract held with NHS England.

The practice is part of a wider network of four GP practices in Chelmer Primary Care Network (PCN).

Information published by Public Health England shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the lowest decile. The data is ranked 1-10, with 1 being the most deprived and 10 being the least deprived. This practice is rated as 10.

According to the latest available data, the ethnic make-up of the practice area is 93.1% White, 3.6% Asian,1.3% Black, 1.8% Mixed, 0.2 Other.

The age distribution of the practice population closely mirrors the local and national averages. There are more male patients registered at the practice compared to females.

There is a team of 2 GP partners, one of whom is the registered manager. There is also 1 regular locum GP. The practice has a team of 1 nurse, 1 healthcare assistant and 1 long-term locum nurse. The GPs are supported at the practice by a practice manager and a team of reception/administration staff. There is also a physician associate, a pharmacy technician and a social prescriber who are PCN staff, based at the practice.

The practice is open between 8 am to 6 pm Monday to Friday. The practice offers a range of appointment types including book on the day, telephone consultations and advance appointments.

Extended access is available at a local practice, where late evening and weekend appointments are available. Out of hours services are provided by NHS 111.

Updated 13 October 2022

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Chelmer Village Surgery on 7 September 2022. Overall, the practice is rated as Good. This was the first inspection of this service since they registered with CQC in 2019.

Safe - Good

Effective - Good

Caring - Good

Responsive - Good

Well-led - Good

The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Chelmer Village Surgery on our website at www.cqc.org.uk

Why we carried out this inspection

We carried out this inspection to rate the practice and in line with our inspection priorities and it included all of the key questions: safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led.

How we carried out the inspection.

This inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to spend a minimum amount of time on site.

This included:

• Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing.
• Completing clinical searches on the practice’s patient records system (this was with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements).
• Reviewing patient records to identify issues and clarify actions taken by the provider.
• Requesting evidence from the provider.
• A short site visit.
• Staff questionnaires

Our findings

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 found that:

• 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.
• 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-centre care.

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

• Improve the process for monitoring patients who are prescribed repeat medicines, including reviews and information recording.
• Improve the management and monitoring of those patients with some long-term conditions, including asthma, hypothyroidism and chronic kidney disease.
• Continue with planned activity to increase the uptake of the immunisation for measles, mumps and rubella for children aged 5.
• Continue with planned activity to increase the uptake of cancer screening following the easing of restrictions after the COVID-19 pandemic for cervical screening and breast screening.
• Continue with the plans to recruit more active members to a patient participation group.

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

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

Chief Inspector of Hospitals and Interim Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services