Alton Surgery

Updated 1 February 2019

Alton Surgery is located at Hurstons Lane, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, ST10 4AP. It is a purpose built medical centre and has five treatment rooms and a dispensary. There is easy access for disabled patients via electronic doors and disabled car parking spaces are available. The premises belong to Community Health Partnership who maintain the building and provide cleaning services.

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

Alton Surgery is situated within the North Staffordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and provides services to approximately 2,578 patients under the terms of a General Medical Services (GMS) contract. A GMS contract is a contract between NHS England and general practices for delivering general medical services to the local community.

The practice employs two GP partners (one male and one female), a salaried GP, a recently qualified doctor gaining experience in general practice, a physician’s associate, a practice nurse and a clinical support assistant, a practice manager and assistant practice manager, a sessional pharmacist, three dispensary staff and a trainee dispenser and two receptionists.

The practice area is one of low deprivation when compared with the national and local CCG area. Demographically the practice has a lower than average younger patient population and a higher than average older patient population when compared with the national averages. For example, 17% of the practice population are 18 years and younger compared with the national average of 21% and 25% of the practice population are older than 65 years old compared with the national average of 17%. The general practice profile shows that the percentage of patients with a long-standing health condition is 54% which is comparable with than the CCG average of 55% and national average of 51%. National General Practice Profile describes the practice ethnicity as being 98.6% white British, 0.6% Asian, 0.1% black, 0.7% mixed and 0.1% other non-white ethnicities. Average life expectancy is 81 years for men and 84 years for women compared to the national average of 79 and 83 years respectively.

Updated 1 February 2019

We previously carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Alton Surgery on 13 June 2017. The overall rating for the practice was good with requires improvement in providing safe services. As a result, we issued two requirement notices in relation to safe care and treatment and fit and proper persons employed. We carried out an announced focused inspection on 17 October 2017 to confirm that the practice had carried out their plan to meet the legal requirements in relation to the regulation breaches. We found that there were ongoing breaches of these regulations and a further breach in staffing. The overall rating remained good with requires improvement in safe services. We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection on 16 March 2018 and found all of the required improvements had not been made. We rated the practice good overall and requires improvement in well-led. We issued a requirement notice in relation to good governance. The reports on the 13 June 2017, 17 October 2017 and 16 March 2018 can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Alton Surgery on our website at www.cqc.org.uk .

We carried out an announced focused inspection at Alton Surgery on 15 January 2019 to ensure that the required changes had been made.

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 rated this practice as good overall.

We found that:

• Opportunities to improve ongoing errors, identified through the significant events process had been explored and addressed and learning shared with staff.
• A system to assess the competency of unqualified staff that assisted in the dispensary had been put in place.
• A system to ensure that standard operating procedures were adhered to for the dispensing of medicines in dosette boxes had been put in place.
• Policies had been updated and information contained within them aligned with other resources.
• Safeguarding meetings were documented and appropriate information was recorded in patients’ records.
• Non-clinical staff had received training to identify the rapidly deteriorating patient and the actions to take.
• The practice had not submitted a notification to Care Quality Commission (CQC) regarding an incident they had reported to the police.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Review the Care Quality Commission (Registration) Regulations 2009 to support their understanding of incidents that are notifiable to the CQC.

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

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP

Chief Inspector of General Practice

Updated 1 February 2019

Updated 1 February 2019

Updated 1 February 2019

Updated 1 February 2019

Updated 1 February 2019

Updated 1 February 2019