Brotton Surgery

Updated 24 January 2019

Brotton Surgery delivers general medical services (GMS) under a contract between themselves and NHS England. They are part of a local GP federation with other practices in the area.

There are four GP partners, two female and two male.

The practice delivers services to the East Cleveland area with the majority of patients coming from Brotton, Loftus and Skelton. They provide services to 6,100 patients of all ages. The practice area is roughly around twenty five miles from the nearest acute hospital. We saw that the practice is able to admit and manage patients transferred to the community hospital. The practice is a teaching and training practice.

Patients can book appointments face to face, by the telephone or online.

The practice GPs do not provide an out-of-hours service to their own patients and patients are signposted to the local out-of-hours service via 111 when the surgery is closed and at weekends. In an emergency patients are advised to ring 999 or attend the nearest accident and emergency department.

There is an all-female nursing team of one nurse practitioner and two practice nurses. The team are supported by a phlebotomist and a health care assistant. The nurses promote healthy living; and provide support for patients with long term conditions such as diabetes, asthma and chronic

obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).The practice has car parking facilities and access for the disabled. The practice recently fitted an automated door making entering and leaving the practice easier for those with disabilities. There are links to public transport. There were no previous performance issues or concerns about the practice.

Information published by Public Health England, rates the level of deprivation within the practice population group as three, on a scale of one to ten. Level three represents high levels of deprivation. Male life expectancy is 79 years which is the same as the national average of 79 years. Female life expectancy is 83 years which is the same as the national average.

The majority of patients at the practice are of white British background (99%). There are a slightly higher proportion of patients over 65 on the practice list compared with practices nationally.

Updated 24 January 2019

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Brotton Surgery, Alford road, Brotton, Saltburn By The Sea, Cleveland TS12 2FF on 3 December 2018. Our inspection team was led by a CQC inspector and included a GP specialist advisor and a second CQC inspector.

Our judgement of the quality of care at this service is based 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.

We concluded that:

• Systems were in place to report, record and disseminate learning from significant events and complaints.

• Staff worked to clear protocols and evidence based clinical guidance to meet patients’ needs.

• Quality improvement activity was carried out which resulted in improved outcomes for patients.

• Staff treated patients with courtesy and respect. Feedback from patients confirmed this.

• The leadership, governance and culture of the practice promoted an inclusive supportive environment for staff.

• Patient satisfaction was high in all areas of the service provided by the practice. Patients survey results were very high. The practice had been ranked 4th in Teesside for the national patient data survey (July 2018).

Whilst we found no breaches of regulations, the area where the provider should make improvements is:

• There was evidence of an infection control audit and some areas were identified as needing improvement. However, there was no action plan in place to show the areas identified had been addressed.

We saw an area of outstanding practice:

• A clinician in the practice had added further ‘pop up’ boxes on their clinical system within their templates. We were told that this reduced variability in coding as well as improving the safety of work carried out by new members of staff, clinical trainees and locums. The templates also promoted patient safety through prompts for clinicians during and after consultations to ensure referrals and investigations were completed.

Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence table.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

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Updated 24 January 2019