Marlowe Park Medical Centre

Updated 18 May 2022

The registered provider is Aspire Medical Health which is a primary care at scale organisation that delivers general practice services at three registered locations in England.

Marlowe Park Medical Centre is located at Wells Road, Rochester, Kent, ME2 2PW. The practice is situated within the NHS Kent and Medway Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and has a general medical services contract with NHS England for delivering primary care services to the local community.

As part of our inspection we visited Marlowe Park Medical Centre, Wells Road, Rochester, Kent, ME2 2PW only, where the provider delivers registered activities.

Marlowe Park Medical Centre has a registered patient population of approximately 4,086 patients. The practice is located in an area with a higher than average deprivation score.

There are arrangements with other providers to deliver services to patients outside of the practice’s working hours.

The practice staff consists of two GP partners (one male and one female), one practice nurse (female), one clinical pharmacist (female), one healthcare assistant (male), one phlebotomist, one team leader, one reception supervisor, two primary care navigators and four primary care co-ordinators. The practice also employs locum staff (including regular locum GPs) directly and practice staff are supported by the primary care at scale organisation Aspire Medical Health management staff.

Marlowe Park Medical Centre is registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to deliver the following regulated activities: diagnostic and screening procedures; family planning; maternity and midwifery services; and treatment of disease, disorder or injury. The provider is in the process of updating their registration with CQC as one of the original three partners has recently left the partnership.

Updated 18 May 2022

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Marlowe Park Medical Centre on 2 November 2021. The overall rating for the practice was Good but the Effective domain was rated Requires Improvement.

After our inspection in November 2021 the provider wrote to us with an action plan outlining how they would make the necessary improvements to comply with the regulations.

Why we carried out this inspection:

We carried out an announced focussed inspection at Marlowe Park Medical Centre on 26 April 2022 to confirm that the practice was meeting the legal requirements in relation to the breaches in regulations that we identified in our previous inspection in November 2021. This report covers findings in relation to those requirements.

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 inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to spend a minimum amount of time on site. This was in line with all data protection and information governance requirements.

This included:

• Requesting evidence from the provider.
• A short site visit.

Our judgement of the quality of care at this service is based 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.

Our findings:

This practice remains rated as Good overall.

The key question at this inspection is rated as:

Are services effective? – Good

We found that:

• Clinical staff were up to date with online basic life support training.
• Patient Group Directions (PGDs) that we looked at were completed correctly and up to date.
• Medicines that required refrigeration were appropriately stored and monitored in line with Public Health England guidance.
• Safety alerts that we looked at were managed correctly.
• Complaints management had been revised and records showed that acknowledgement of complaints as well as outcome replies to complainants were recorded.

We rated the practice as Good for providing effective services because:

• Improvements had been made as well as maintained so that patients with long-term conditions were receiving relevant reviews and follow ups where necessary in line with best practice guidance.
• Improvements had been made as well as maintained in how the practice identified and treated patients with commonly undiagnosed conditions such as diabetes.
• Patients who were prescribed mirabegron had been informed of the risks associate with taking this medicine in line with best practice guidance.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Continue with plans for staff to attend the practical elements of basic life support training when they become available.
• Continue with activities that encourage uptake of breast cancer screening.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP

Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care

Please refer to the detailed report and the evidence tables for further information.