Ripple Road Medical Centre

Updated 3 January 2024

Ripple Road Medical Centre is located in Barking at:

364-370 Ripple Road

Barking

IG11 9RS

The provider is registered with CQC to deliver the Regulated Activities, diagnostic and screening procedures, maternity and midwifery services, treatment of disease, disorder or injury and surgical procedures. The practice is situated within the North East London Integrated Care System (ICS) and delivers General Medical Services (GMS) to a patient population of about 9,900. This is part of a contract held with NHS England.

Information published by Office for Health Improvement and Disparities shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the third decile (3 of 10). The lower the decile, the more deprived the practice population is relative to others.

The practice is part of a wider network of GP practices, West One Primary Care Network.

According to the latest available data, the ethnic make-up of the practice area is 27% Asian, 47% White, 19.3% Black, 4.6% Mixed and other 2.1%.

There is a team of five full time equivalent GPs, two advanced nurses’ practitioners, two practice nurses, a health care assistant, and a pharmacist, who mostly work on a sessional basis. The clinical team are supported at the practice by a team of administration staff. The practice manager provided managerial oversight.

The practice is open between 8.00am to 6.30 pm Monday to Friday. The practice offers a range of appointments such as online, face-to-face, telephone and home visits.

The local GP Federation operated an extended hours service from 6.30pm to 9.30pm Monday to Friday and Saturdays and Sundays 9am to 5pm.

The practice had access to an enhanced appointment system operated by the local GP Federation, this offered childhood vaccination and cervical screening appointments in weekday evenings and at weekends.

Updated 3 January 2024

We carried out an announced focused assessment of the key question responsive at Ripple Road Medical Centre on 14 December 2023. Overall, the practice is rated as good and the key question for providing a responsive service is now rated requires improvement.

Safe - not inspected, rating of good carried forward from previous inspection.

Effective - not inspected, rating of good carried forward from previous inspection.

Caring - not inspected, rating of good carried forward from previous inspection.

Responsive – Requires Improvement.

Well-led - not inspected, rating of good carried forward from previous inspection.

Following our previous inspection in September 2022 the practice was rated good overall and for all key questions.

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

Why we carried out this inspection.

We carried out this assessment as part of our work to understand how practices are working to try to meet people’s demands for access and to better understand the experiences of people who use services and providers.

We recognise the work that GP practices have been engaged in to continue to provide safe, quality care to the people they serve. We know staff are carrying this out whilst the demand for general practice remains exceptionally high, with more appointments being provided than ever. However, this challenging context, access to general practice remains a concern for people.

Our strategy makes a commitment to deliver regulation driven by people’s needs and experiences of care. These assessments of the responsive key question include looking at what practices are doing innovatively to improve patient access to primary care and sharing this information to drive improvement.

How we carried out the assessment

This assessment was carried out remotely. It did not include a site visit.

The process included:

• Conducting an interview with the provider and members of staff using video conferencing.
• Reviewing patient feedback from a range of sources.
• Requesting evidence from the provider.
• Reviewing data, we hold about the provider.
• Seeking information/feedback from relevant stakeholders.

Our findings

We based our judgement of the responsive key question on a combination of:

• what we found when we met with the provider
• information from our ongoing monitoring of data about services and information from the provider, patients, the public and other organisations.

We found that:

• During the assessment process, the provider highlighted the actions they have taken to make improvements to access in response to patient feedback. However, the patient GP survey over the last two to three years had remained in parts below the national average and the impact of the improvements carried out by the practice was not yet fully reflected in the GP patient feedback.

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

• Continue to improve patient access.

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 Health Care