Cheveley Park Medical Centre

Updated 14 February 2019

Cheveley Park Medical Centre provides care and treatment to around 4,350 patients. The practice is part of North Durham clinical commissioning group (CCG) and operates on a General Medical Services (GMS) contract agreement for general practice.

The practice provides services from the following address, which we visited as part of the inspection:

• The Links, Belmont, Durham, DH1 2UW

The surgery is located in purpose-built premises. All patient facilities are on the ground floor. There is a car park, an accessible WC, wheelchair and step-free access.

Patients can book appointments in person, on-line or by telephone.

The service for patients requiring urgent medical attention out of hours is provided by the NHS 111 service and County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust.

The practice has:

• two GP partners (both female),
• two salaried GPs (one female and one male),
• two practice nurses (both female),
• one healthcare assistant,
• a practice manager,
• a finance officer,
• five staff who carry out reception and administrative duties, and
• one domestic.

The practice is a training practice and three of the GPs are accredited GP trainers. At the time of the inspection two trainee GPs and one F2 doctor (F2s are doctors with full GMC registration in their second year of postgraduate medical education and training) were working at the practice.

The age profile of the practice population is broadly in line with the local averages; although the percentage of patients over the age of 65 is higher (24.3% compared to the CCG average of 19.8%). Information taken from Public Health England placed the area in which the practice is located in the second less deprived decile. In general, people living in more deprived areas tend to have greater need for health services.

Updated 14 February 2019

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Cheveley Park Medical Centre on 17 January 2019 as part of our inspection programme.

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 as outstanding overall.

We rated the practice as outstanding for providing effective services for the families, children and young people and people experiencing poor mental health population groups and therefore overall, because:

• The practice had a very proactive approach to encouraging parents to take their children for their childhood immunisations; which resulted in a 100% uptake rate.
• Highly effective arrangements were in place to support those patients with dementia, which were recognised by credible external bodies.

We rated the practice as outstanding for providing caring services because:

• Feedback from patients was consistently positive and was higher than local and national averages.
• Leaders were aware of some of the barriers and problems young carers faced. They had developed comprehensive systems to support young carers and had been awarded an accreditation from the local authority ‘County Durham Young Persons Charter’.

We saw some areas of outstanding practice including:

• The practice was aware of some of the barriers and problems young carers faced. They had developed comprehensive systems to support young carers and had been awarded an accreditation from the local authority ‘County Durham Young Persons Charter’.

We also rated the practice as good for providing safe, responsive and well led services because:

• The practice provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm.
• The practice organised and delivered services to meet patients’ needs. Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.
• We rated the practice as outstanding for providing responsive services to the population group families, children and young people because of the innovative work to support young people, for which they had received external awards and accreditations.
• 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:

• Improve arrangements to provide assurance that relevant patient safety alerts have been identified, distributed to the right people, a decision made on which need actioned and any action taken recorded.
• Review their arrangements for ensuring that staff have received the relevant vaccinations.
• Review their risk assessment and subsequent decision to not store oxygen on the premises, to ensure appropriate arrangements are in place address any medical emergencies which may require oxygen.

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

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP
Chief Inspector of General Practice

Updated 14 February 2019

Updated 14 February 2019

Updated 14 February 2019

Updated 14 February 2019

Updated 14 February 2019

Updated 14 February 2019