New Washington Medical Group

Updated 28 April 2022

New Washington Medical Group is located in Washington Tyne and Wear and provides services from, Victoria Road Medical Centre, Concord, Washington, Tyne and Wear, NE37 2PU

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

The practice is situated within the Sunderland Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and delivers General Medical Services (GMS) to a patient population of about 7460. This is part of a contract held with NHS England.

Information published by Public Health England shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the fourth most deprived decile (four 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 97.8% White 1.1% Asian, 0.7% Mixed, 0.3% Black, and 0.1% Other.

There is a team of three GPs partners (two female and one male) providing 21 sessions per week. The practice has one advanced nurse practitioner providing eight sessions per week and two practice nurses, eight sessions per week. There are two healthcare assistants providing 13 sessions per week and a full-time trainee nursing associate. There is a practice manager and finance manager and a team of reception/administration staff.

This is a training practice, which provides opportunities for medical students.

Due to the enhanced infection prevention and control measures put in place since the pandemic and in line with the national guidance, most GP appointments were telephone consultations. If the GP needs to see a patient face-to-face then they arrange this with the patient.

Extended access is provided locally by Sunderland GP alliance, where late evening and weekend appointments are available. This service offers pre-bookable appointments for patients who require urgent attention at the Galleries Health Centre, Washington across the hours:

• 6pm – 8:30pm: Monday – Friday
• 9am – 5:30pm: Saturday – Sunday and Bank Holidays

Out of hours services are provided by via the NHS 111 service.

Updated 28 April 2022

We carried out an announced inspection at New Washington Medical Group on 29 March and 5 April 2022. Overall, the practice is rated as Good.

The ratings for the key questions are:

Safe - Good

Effective - Good

Caring - Good

Responsive - Good

Well-led - Good

This is the first time we have inspected this practice under the current registered provider.

This practice is an amalgamation of three GP practices which came together in 2018.

They were previously registered as Victoria Medical Practice, Dr Annie Thomas, and Dr Bhatt and Dr Benn practices.

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

Why we carried out this inspection

This inspection was a comprehensive inspection to check how the practice was meeting essential standards and to inspect and rate it following the new registration with the Care Quality Commission.

• As this was an inspection of a new registration, we inspected all five key questions. These are: is the practice safe, effective, caring, responsive, and well led?

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 phone calls and video conferencing
• 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 good overall.

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.
• Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
• 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. Although the practice recognised the challenge for patients getting through by phone, they continued to seek ways to improve and support good access for patients.
• The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centre care. Although the practice had found the pandemic challenging, they had demonstrated resilience and continuity of providing good quality of care for patients during this time.

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

• Continue to develop the staff appraisal system.
• Continue to actively recruit new staff to the practice to fill vacancies.

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.