Woodchurch Surgery

Updated 8 February 2023

Woodchurch Surgery offers general medical services to people living and working in Ashford, Tenterden, Wittersham and surrounding areas.

Services are provided from:

Woodchurch Surgery

Front Road

Woodchurch

Ashford

Kent

TN26 3SF

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

The practice holds a General Medical Service contract and is led by one senior GP. The GP is supported by three salaried GPs, a lead nurse, two nurse practitioners, two practice nurses and a healthcare assistant, five dispensers, a practice manager, and a team of reception and administrative staff. A range of services and clinics are offered by the practice including asthma clinics, child immunisation clinics, diabetes clinics, new patient checks, and weight management support.

The practice provides dispensary services to those patients on the practice list who live more than one mile (1.6km) from their nearest pharmacy premises. This service is delivered by five dispensers. The dispensary is open between 9am and 5.45pm Monday to Friday.

The practice is a training practice which takes foundation year two registrar GPs (Speciality Training year two (ST2)GP Registrars) and has one ST2 GP Registrar working at the practice.

The practice population of approximately 5,000 patients has a higher than average number of patients over the age of 65 and a greater proportion of patients with a long term health condition. The practice is in one of the least deprived areas of Kent, placed in the fourth less deprived decile.

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

Woodchurch Surgery is a member practice of the Ashford Rural Primary Care Network (PCN) along with Ivy Court Surgery, Charing Surgery and Hamstreet Surgery. The Ashford Rural PCN has 41,000 patients. The Clinical Director is the senior partner from Charing Surgery.

The PCN works together to deliver a number of services jointly including ultrasound, echocardiograms and domiciliary INR (international normalised ratio), blood testing. The PCN consists of staff to support their patients including clinical pharmacists, first contact physiotherapists and social prescribers.

The practice has opted out of providing Out of Hours services to their patients. There are arrangements for patients to access care from an Out of Hours provider (111).

Updated 8 February 2023

We carried out an announced inspection at Woodchurch Surgery on 10 August 2022. Overall, the practice is rated as Good.

Safe - Good

Effective - Good

Caring – Good

Responsive - Good

Well-led – Good

Following our previous inspection on 20 September 2016, the practice was rated Good overall and Outstanding for Responsive.

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

Why we carried out this inspection

This inspection was a comprehensive inspection as the practice had not been inspected since September 2016.

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 with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements.

This included:

• Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing facilities
• Completing clinical searches on the practice’s patient records system and discussing findings with the provider
• Reviewing patient records to identify issues and clarify actions taken by the provider
• Requesting evidence from the provider
• A short site visit

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

We found that:

• Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.
• 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.
• The practice adjusted how it delivered services to meet the needs of patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. 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.
• Information about services and how to complain was available and easy to understand. Improvements were made to the quality of care as a result of complaints and concerns.
• There was a strong, visible, person-centred culture. Staff were highly motivated and inspired to offer care that was kind and promoted people’s dignity. Relationships between people who used the service, those close to them and staff were strong, caring and supportive. These relationships were highly valued by all staff and promoted by leaders.
• Patients were respected and valued as individuals and were empowered as partners in their care, practically and emotionally, by an exceptional and distinctive service.
• Feedback from patients was consistently positive and was higher than local and national averages.
• The practice worked with other agencies to provide effective care to patients wherever they were located, and understood and worked to address the barriers to access faced by homeless patients.
• The practice had identified areas where there were gaps in provision locally and had taken steps to address them.
• There was a focus on innovation and improvement, for example recognising homeless people were likely to have multiple and complex needs and poor health outcomes without effective support. The practice had a clear mission to provide homeless and refugee patients with access to a high-quality primary care service.
• Services were tailored to meet the needs of individual people and were delivered in a way to ensure flexibility, choice and continuity of care.
• The involvement of other organisations and the local community was integral to how services were planned and ensured services met people’s needs. There were innovative approaches to providing integrated person-centred pathways of care that involved other service providers, particularly for people with multiple and complex needs.
• There was a proactive approach to understanding the needs of different groups of people and to deliver care in a way that met those needs and promoted equality. This included people who were in vulnerable circumstances or who have complex needs.

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