Background to this inspection
Updated
5 August 2021
The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust (RWT) has been the registered provider for Coalway Road Medical Practice since July 2018. All staff have transferred to RWT and are salaried employees of the Trust.
Coalway Road Medical Practice is a well-established GP practice situated in Wolverhampton. The practice operates from converted residential premises. There is access for patients who use wheelchairs. The practice has a higher proportion of patients between the ages of 18 and 65 years (40%) compared with the local average of 33% and the average across England of 35%. At the time of our inspection, the practice had approximately 4,905 registered patients. The ethnicity of patients registered at the practice was approximately 70% white and 21% Asian. The remaining 9% were identified as mixed race, black and other race. The practice is in the least deprived decile in the city.
Coalway Road Medical Practice is a member of the NHS Wolverhampton Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). The practice provides services to patients of all ages based on a General Medical Services (GMS) contract with NHS England for delivering primary care services to their local community. Services provided at the practice include the following clinics; long-term condition management including asthma, diabetes, minor surgery, hypertension (high blood pressure) and immunisation. The practice does not provide an out-of-hours service to its own patients but directs patients to out of hours services.
The level of income deprivation affecting children is 36.5%, which is lower than the England average of 38.2%. The level of income deprivation affecting older people is 34.7% which is higher than the England average of 27%.
The team of clinical staff at Coalway Road Medical Practice is made up of three salaried GPs (two female, one male). The GPs work a total of 23 sessions between them. Other clinical staff include two practice nurses and support from the RWT primary care network pharmacy team. The clinical staff are supported by a practice manager, and administration and reception staff. There are 12 staff working at the practice either full or part time hours.
Additional information about the practice is available on their website:
www.coalwayroadsurgery.co.uk
Updated
5 August 2021
We carried out a desk based announced inspection review at Coalway Road Medical Practice on 15 June 2021. Overall, the practice is rated as good.
Ratings for each key question:
Safe – Good
Effective – Good (rating carried forward from August 2019 inspection)
Caring – Good (rating carried forward from August 2019 inspection)
Responsive – Good (rating carried forward from August 2019 inspection)
Well Led – Good (rating carried forward from August 2019 inspection)
Coalway Road Medical Practice was previously inspected in May 2015 and was rated good overall. A comprehensive inspection carried out in December 2017 as part of our inspection programme rated the practice as requires improvement for providing safe, effective and well led services and the practice was rated requires improvement overall. A further inspection was carried out in August 2019, the practice was rated good overall and requires improvement for providing safe services.
The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Coalway Road Medical Practice on our website at www.cqc.org.uk
Why we carried out this review
This inspection was a focused review of information to follow up on:
- The key question of Safe, which was rated as requires improvement at the last inspection in August 2019.
- Areas followed up at this inspection included breaches of regulations and ‘shoulds’ identified at the previous inspection. These were related to the safe prescribing and monitoring of high risk medicines and the lack of effective systems to ensure medicines that had reached their expiry date were replaced in a timely manner.
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 reviews differently.
This inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to not have to undertake an onsite visit. This was with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements.
This included:
- Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing
- Requesting evidence from the provider
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 have rated this practice as Good overall and good for all population groups
We found that:
- The practice had reviewed their systems for the prescribing and monitoring of high-risk medicines.
- Systems had been implemented to monitor and ensure medicines stocked at the practice that had reached their expiry date were replaced in a timely manner.
- The management of medicines at the practice was supported by the Deputy Clinical Director of Pharmacy for the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust (RWT). The pharmacy clinical director had oversight of the RWT primary care network group of GP practices.
- The practice adjusted how it delivered services to meet the needs of patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Procedures were in place to manage an outbreak of COVID-19 at the practice. The practice had implemented these procedures on one occasion. The practice was closed to allow deep cleaning to be carried out and patients were asked to attend their appointment at one of the other practices within the primary care group.
- The provider used the services of an external cleaning company but were unaware of whether safe infection prevention and control practice measures were implemented and monitored during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Whilst we found no breaches of regulations, the provider should:
- Take action to monitor and improve the completion of risk assessments undertaken by the external cleaning company used.
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