Background to this inspection
Updated
14 April 2020
CQC has registered Herrington Medical Centre to provide primary care services. The practice provides services to approximately just over 8700 patients from one location, Herrington Medical Centre, Philadelphia Lane, Houghton Le Spring, Sunderland DH4 4LE, which we visited as part of this inspection.
Herrington Medical Centre provides care and treatment to patients of all ages based on a Personal Medical Services (PMS) contract. They are situated in the Houghton le Spring area. The practice is part of the NHS Sunderland clinical commissioning group (CCG). All patient services are delivered from the ground floor.
The practice has four GP partners, of which three are male and one is female. There is a female salaried GP, a practice manager, an assistant practice manager, four practice nurses, a phlebotomist, a team of eight administrative and reception staff and two domestic staff. The practice is a training practice and supports GP trainees.
The surgery is open 8.20am to 6.00pm, Monday to Friday. The consultation times are between 8:30am to 11:30am and 2:00pm to 5:30pm Monday to Friday. Phone lines for appointments and other routine requests are open between 8:30am to 12pm and 1:30pm to 6pm. In addition, urgent cover for calls is provided between 12-1:30pm each week day.
The service for patients requiring urgent medical attention out of hours is provided by the NHS 111 service and Northern Doctors Urgent Care Limited (NDUC).
Information taken from Public Health England placed the area in which the practice was located in the fifth most deprived decile. In general, people living in more deprived areas tend to have greater need for health services. The average male life expectancy is 78 years, which is one year lower than the England average and the average female life expectancy is 81 years, which is two years lower than the England average.
The percentage of patients reporting with a long-standing health condition is slightly lower than the national average (practice population is 43.3% compared to a national average of 54.0%). The percentage of patients with health-related problems in daily life is higher than the national average (62.9% compared to 48.8% nationally).
Updated
14 April 2020
We carried out an inspection of this service on 7 February 2020 following our annual review of the information available to us including information provided by the practice. Our review indicated that there may have been a significant change to the quality of care provided since the last inspection.
This inspection focused on the following key questions: effective, caring, responsive, and well led.
Because of the assurance received from our review of information we carried forward the ratings for the following key questions: safe.
We based our judgement of the quality of care at this service is 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 outstanding overall.
We rated the practice as outstanding for providing caring services because:
- People were truly respected and valued as individuals and were empowered as partners in their care. Staff were fully committed to working in partnership with people and making this a reality for each person.
We rated the practice as outstanding for providing responsive services because:
- Services were tailored to meet the needs of individual people and were delivered in a way to ensure flexibility, choice and continuity of care. There were innovative approaches to providing integrated person-centred care that involved other services.
We rated the practice as outstanding for providing well led services because:
- The leadership, governance and culture were used to drive and improve the delivery of high-quality care. Safe innovation was celebrated. There was a clear approach to seeking out and embedding new ways of providing care and treatment.
We also rated the practice as good for providing effective services because:
- Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs.
We saw several areas of outstanding practice including:
- A GP at the practice had developed a website specifically designed to help patients to be involved as much as possible in their care. The website began as a teaching tool but had been developed to help patients with certain long-term conditions to make informed decisions about their treatment. The site had been used almost 500 times by patients between August 2019 and at the time of the inspection, and feedback from patients showed they found it useful. A patient we spoke to on the day of inspection told us they had used the website and that it helped them to better understand their care options and made them feel less anxious about their condition.
- A practice nurse was the lead nurse for the local clinical commissioning group (CCG), and in this role they had implemented the “No Fear” campaign in the local area to promote uptake of cervical screening among younger women who were apprehensive about attending for their first smear test. The nurse had worked with local hair salons and beauty parlours to encourage them to offer discounts to women who attended their practice for cervical screening for the first time. The practice’s cervical screening rate among 25- to 28-year-olds since starting this project was 77% and the practice’s overall screening rate had increased from 80% in 2016/17 to 82% in 2018/19. Uptake was also high across the other five practices in the Primary Care Network where the scheme was being introduced.
We also saw an area where the practice should improve:
- Thoroughly investigate the reason why the exception reporting rate is high for patients with diabetes, on the register, in whom the last IFCC-HbA1c is 64 mmol/mol or less in the preceding 12 months, and take action to reduce this.
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