The Boulevard Medical Practice

Updated 11 August 2023

The Boulevard Medical Centre is located at 116 Savile Park Road, Halifax, West Yorkshire, HX1 2ES. There is a branch site at Horne Street Surgery, Horne Street, Halifax, HS1 5UA.

We visited both sites as part of this inspection.

The service is provided by Boulevard Medical Practice Ltd who are registered with CQC to deliver the Regulated Activities; diagnostic and screening procedures, family planning, maternity and midwifery services and treatment of disease, disorder or injury and surgical procedures. These are delivered from both sites.

The practice is situated within the NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB) and provides services to 15,825 patients under the terms of a General Medical Services (GMS) contract.

The practice is part of a wider network of GP practices known as a Primary Care Network (PCN). PCNs are a group of practices working together to focus care on the needs of the local population. The Boulevard Medical Practice is part of the Central Halifax PCN.

Information published by Office for Health Improvement and Disparities shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the fourth lowest decile (4 of 10). The lower the decile, the more deprived the practice population is relative to others.

According to the latest available data, the ethnic make-up of the practice area is 80% white British or Irish, 17% Asian and 3% originating from black, mixed or other non-white ethnic groups.

There is a team of 7 GPs (5 permanent and 2 long-term locums) who provide cover at both practices. The GPs are supported by 2 advanced nurse practitioners, 1 advanced clinical practitioner, 1 nurse manager, 1 practice nurse, 1 nursing associate and 2 phlebotomists.

The practice is a training practice and at the time of our inspection they were supporting 7 GP registrars and 1 advanced nurse practitioner in training.

In addition, the practice offered access to services such as physiotherapy, podiatry, mental health practitioners, social prescibers, care co-ordinators and a physician associate.

The practice is open between 8am and 6.30pm Monday to Friday. The practice offers a range of appointment types including book on the day, telephone consultations and advance appointments.

The practice offers in-house extended hours from from 9am until 1pm on Saturday.

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

Updated 11 August 2023

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at The Boulevard Medical Practice on 21 and 22 June 2023. Overall, the practice is rated as good.

Safe - good

Effective - good

Caring - good

Responsive - good

Well-led - good

Following our previous inspection in May 2022, the practice was rated requires improvement overall and for providing effective, responsive and well-led services. We rated the provider inadequate for providing safe services and good for providing a caring service. As a result of this inspection, we issued a warning notice in respect of Regulation 12 (1) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014: Safe care and treatment and a requirement notice in respect of Regulation 17 (1) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014: Good governance.

We then carried out a focused unrated inspection inspection in October 2022. The purpose of this inspection was to review actions taken by the provider in response to a warning notice in respect of Regulation 12 (1) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014: Safe care and treatment. At this inspection we found the provider had taken steps to become compliant with Regulation 12.

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

Why we carried out this inspection

We carried out this comprehensive inspection to follow up breaches of regulation from the previous inspection in May 2022 in line with our inspection priorities.

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 had taken steps to address the breaches of regulation identified at the previous inspection. For example, we saw that patients with a long-term condition were being managed appropriately, there was a system in place for the review and management of patient safety alerts and NICE guidance and an updated electronic system to ensure staff appraisals were carried out annually.
• The practice was committed to continually monitoring and improving the service and could demonstrate this through audit activity and changes made to the service as a result of findings.
• 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 practice continually monitored access and GP partners at the practice worked flexibility to increase access for patients.
• The practice GP partners and the management team were committed to the safety and well-being of staff. We heard of numerous incentives for staff including access to counselling and support.
• 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:

• Consolidate the in-house safeguarding register with patients identified by clinical systems search.
• Review smartcard access rights to allocate correct level of access to all clinical and non-clinical staff members.
• Improve pre-employment health assessment to capture immunisation status and take appropriate steps to comply with requirements laid out in chapter 12 of the Green Book.
• Continue to progress patient notes summarising.