Newquay Health Centre

Updated 22 February 2023

Newquay Health Centre is located at:

The Health Centre

St Thomas Road

Newquay

TR7 1RU

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

The practice is situated within the Kernow Integrated Care System (ICS) and delivers Personal Medical Services (PMS) to a patient population of about 16,700. This is part of a contract held with NHS England.

The practice is part of a wider network of GP practices, known as Watergate Primary Care Network (PCN), comprised of Newquay Health Centre; Narrowcliff Surgery and Petroc Group Practice. This is led by a Clinical Director and provides services to a patient population of approximately 49,000 patients. Patients registered at these practices are also part of the PCN and are able to benefit from services offered including; social prescribing and community services; a dedicated Pharmacy team and a Mental Health team.

Information published by Office for Health Improvement and Disparities shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the fifth lowest decile (five 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 97.7% White, 1.1% Mixed, 0.8% Asian, 0.2% Black, and 0.2% Other.

There is a team of 14 GPs at the practice comprising of nine partners and five salaried GPs. The practice team also consisted of an advanced nurse practitioner, practice nurses, healthcare assistants and a clinical pharmacist. The clinical team are supported by a management team, reception and administration staff.

Patients using the service also have access to community staff including community matron, district nurses, health visitors and counsellors.

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 at the health centre, where late evening appointments are available Monday to Thursday 6.30pm to 8pm. Out of hours services are provided by NHS 111.

Updated 22 February 2023

We carried out an announced focused inspection at Newquay Health Centre on 25 November 2022. Overall, the practice is rated as Good.

Safe - Good

Effective - Good

Caring – Not inspected, rating of Good carried forward from previous inspection.

Responsive – Inspected but not rated, rating of Good carried forward from previous inspection.

Well-led - Good

Following our previous inspection on 7 December 2021, the practice was rated Requires Improvement overall and for the key questions of Safe and Well-led. Key questions Effective, Caring and Responsive were rated Good.

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

Why we carried out this inspection

This inspection was a focused follow-up inspection to review:

• Safe, Effective, Responsive and Well-led domains
• Breaches of regulations and recommendations identified from the previous inspection

How we carried out the inspection

Throughout the pandemic, CQC has continued to regulate and respond to risk. However, taking into account 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 included:

• Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing facilities.
• 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.

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:

• Improvements had been made across the practice’s governance and assurance systems since our last inspection.
• There were clear and effective processes for managing health and safety including infection prevention and control (IPC).
• The practice had implemented improved systems to ensure the security and tracking of blank prescriptions, in line with national guidelines.
• The practice provided care that supported the appropriate and safe use of medicines, this included regular monitoring arrangements for patients prescribed high-risk medicines.
• Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs. The practice’s auditing of care and treatment was now embedded providing assurance of this.
• There was a structured and coordinated approach to the management of patients with long term conditions.
• Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.
• Incidents and complaints were investigated and managed openly and transparently when something went wrong, in line with the duty of candour.
• 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:

• Take action to correctly apply the protocol for patient results handling, in line with practice policy timescales.
• Implement a formal process outlining the scope of practice and supervision arrangements for non-medical prescribers.
• Improve the uptake of cervical cancer screening and childhood immunisation to eligible patients.
• Support staff awareness for the cancer detection protocol and pathways in place for the new detection of cases in patients.