The Care Quality Commission
  • Doctor
  • GP practice

Gatacre Street Surgery

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

Gatacre Street, Blyth, Northumberland, NE24 1HD

Provided and run by:
Railway Medical Group

Important: The provider of this service changed - see old profile

All Inspections

24 november 2023

During an inspection looking at part of the service

We carried out a targeted assessment of the Gatacre Street Surgery in relation to the responsive key question. This assessment was carried out on 24 November 2023 without a site visit. Overall, the practice is rated as Good. We rated the key question of responsive as Requires Improvement.

Safe - Good

Effective – Good

Caring - Good

Responsive – Requires Improvement

Well-led – Good

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

Why we carried out this inspection

This inspection was a targeted assessment of the key question of responsive.

How we carried out the inspection

This inspection was carried remotely.

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 found that:

  • The practice and their staff were working hard under intense pressure to improve access for their patients. However, this was not yet reflected in the GP patient survey data or other sources of patient feedback.
  • The practice understood and were responsive to the changing needs of its local population.
  • The practice had an active Patient Participation Group.
  • The practice dealt with complaints in a timely manner and learned from them.

Whilst we found no breaches of regulations, the provider should:

• Continue to develop solutions to provide better access to their patients.

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

13 October 2020

During an inspection looking at part of the service

The practice was rated as good overall, however we rated the population group for families and young people as requires improvement because:

Not all of the practice nurses had completed Level 3 safeguarding training, as set out in the Intercollegiate Document, ‘Safeguarding Children and Young People: Roles and Competencies for Healthcare staff ’(January 2019). Also, the child safeguarding policy, required reviewing so that it took into account of this document, and other recent relevant national guidance.

The cervical screening uptake rates required improvement to bring it into line with the Public Health England programme target.

The childhood immunisation uptake rates required improvement to bring them into line with the 95% WHO target.

The previous inspection also stated that the practice should continue in their efforts to improve telephone access for patients, access to appointments and to improve patients’ experience of continuity of car.

This review did not involve an inspection visit and was carried out remotely because of the current Covid19 pandemic situation. Our findings were based on the documentary evidence provided by the practice and were as follows:

All nurses had now completed level 3 in safeguarding. The practice had renewed their Child Safeguarding Policy, which contained relevant national guidance. This will be reviewed annually the next date being November 2020.

Since the previous inspection the practice had undertaken an audit on cervical screening and from this a number of changes have been made and new initiatives carried out. This had resulted in an increase of patients attending for smear appointments.

The immunisation rates for children have increased to above the WHO 90% target. The practice made changes and introduced a system with the Health Visiting team relating to children who are repeatedly not brought to the practice for immunisation.

Since the previous inspection another GP patient survey had been carried out. post -covid working. This was using paper surveys from clinicians, patients who attended the practice and text surveys. The results showed that patients were more satisfied with access to the practice.

This includes e consult, telephone, video and face to face consultations.

15 October 2019

During a routine inspection

We carried out an announced, comprehensive inspection at Gatacre Street Surgery, on 15 October 2019, as part of our inspection programme and because the location had been newly registered within the previous 15 months.

This inspection looked at the following key questions:

  • Is the service safe?
  • Is the service effective?
  • Is the service caring?
  • Is the service responsive?
  • Is the service well led?

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, with the exception of children, families and young people. We have rated this population group as requires improvement.

We found that:

  • 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. However, childhood immunisation uptake rates were below the 95% World Health Organisation (WHO) target, and the cervical screening rate was below the Public Health England programme target.
  • Staff treated patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
  • The practice organised and delivered services to meet patients’ needs.
  • The practice had improved their arrangements for providing patients with access to appointments, despite the significant increase in the size of their patient list during the previous 18 months, and the impact this had on their workload. However, some patients reported they were still experiencing difficulties getting through to the practice by telephone and obtaining an appointment.
  • The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centre care.

We identified some outstanding aspects:

  • Despite the challenges and workload pressures faced by the practice registering 3,200 patients during 2018/19, leaders had actively assessed areas of risk to patient safety, put plans in place to address them, improved how they delivered services and worked with stakeholder agencies to learn lessons about how the reallocation of such a large group of patients had been managed.
  • In response to an increase in the practice’s safeguarding workload, during 2018/19, leaders had taken action to strengthen their arrangements for keeping patients safe. This included the appointment of an experienced senior GP clinical associate, to review and improve the practice’ safeguarding processes and systems, and oversee its duties and responsibilities.

Whilst we found no breaches of regulations, the provider should:

  • Arrange for the practice nurses to complete Level 3 safeguarding training, as set out in the Intercollegiate Document, ‘Safeguarding Children and Young People: Roles and Competencies for Healthcare staff’ (January 2019). Also, the provider should review their child safeguarding policy, so that it takes account of this document, and other recent relevant national guidance.
  • Improve the cervical screening uptake rate, to bring it into line with the Public Health England programme target.
  • Improve childhood immunisation uptake rates, to bring them into line with the 95% WHO target.
  • Continue in their efforts to improve telephone access, access to appointments and patients’ experience of continuity of care, to help ensure these lead to demonstrable improvements.
  • Continue to take action to reduce Quality and Outcomes Framework levels of exception reporting.

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