Archived: Abbey Meads Medical Practice

Updated 28 March 2018

Abbey Meads Medical Practice is located in Swindon. It is one of the 26 practices within the NHS Swindon Clinical Commissioning Group area and has around 18,200 patients. The practice shares a purpose built building with a number of other health related services. Treatment and consulting rooms are not shared. Patient services are located on the ground and first floors and include; four consulting rooms, four treatments rooms, an automatic front door, a blood pressure monitoring machine for patient’s use, a self-check-in appointment system and a toilet with access for people with disabilities. There is a passenger lift to the first floor.

The area the practice serves has relatively high numbers of young families and a higher than average number of patients under 19 years of age and between 35 and 50 years of age. The practice area is in the national average range for deprivation. Average male and female life expectancy for the area is 79 and 84 years, which is broadly in line with the national average of 79 and 83 years respectively.

The practice provides a number of services and clinics for its patients including childhood immunisations, family planning, minor surgery and a range of health lifestyle management and advice including asthma management, diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure management.

There are five GP partners and two salaried GPs. (Two of the partners are not based at the practice and do not usually do clinical work in the practice.) They are supported by a clinical nurse manager, eight practice nurses, two healthcare assistants and an administrative team of 23 led by the practice manager.

The practice is a teaching and training practice. (Teaching practices take medical students and training practices have GP trainees, usually called registrars). At the time of our inspection they had one registrar working with them.

The practice is open between 8.30am and 7.30pm Monday to Friday, except Wednesday when they close from 12.30pm to 1.30pm and Friday when they close at 6.30pm. GP appointments are available between 9am and 12pm every morning and 2pm to 5.30pm every afternoon. Extended hours appointments are offered from 6.30pm and 7.30pm Monday to Thursday and 7.30 am to 8.30 am on Thursday. Appointments can be booked over the telephone or in person at the surgery. The practice had a system in which patients could only book on the day appointments.

When the practice is closed, the practice’s website advises that all calls will be directed to the out of hours service. Out of hours services are provided by Medvivo and can be accessed by calling NHS 111.

The practice has a Personal Medical Services contract to deliver health care services. This contract acts as the basis for arrangements between NHS England and providers of general medical services in England.

The practice provides services from the following sites:

• Abbey Meads Medical Practice, Elstree Way, Swindon, SN25 4YZ
• Penhill Surgery, 257 Penhill Drive, Swindon, SN2 5HN
• Crossroads Surgery, 478 Cricklade Road, Swindon, SN2 7BG

We visited the Abbey Meads Medical Practice as part of this inspection.

Updated 28 March 2018

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Abbey Meads Medical Group on 28 and 29 October 2014. We found breaches in the regulations relating to safe and well-led services, and the overall rating for the practice was requires improvement. The full comprehensive report for the October 2014 inspection can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Abbey Meads Medical Group on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

We carried out a further announced comprehensive inspection of Abbey Meads Medical Group on 6 June 2017, to confirm that the practice had carried out their plan to meet the legal requirements in relation to the breaches in regulations that we identified in our previous inspection on 28 and 29 October 2014. At this inspection we found breaches in the regulations relating to safe, effective, responsive and well-led services. As a result of these findings, the overall rating for the practice continued to be requires improvement. The issues were:

• The practice did not ensure there were systems in place to enable the registered person to assess, monitor and improve the quality and safety of the service and which ensured scrutiny and overall responsibility is held by the partners.
• The practice did not maintain adequate records of decisions made and action taken by the partners in relation to their governance role.
• The practice did not adequately assess the risks to the security of confidential information, medicines and equipment caused by working in a shared building and take appropriate steps to minimise these risks.
• The practice did not ensure letters responding to patients complaints included information about how to escalate the complaints if they were not satisfied with the practice’ response.
• Not all staff had received training essential to their role. For example, seven clinical staff had not received training on safeguarding children and vulnerable adults relevant to their role.

Following the inspection on 6 June 2017, the provider sent us an action plan that set out the actions they would take to meet the breached regulations. We then undertook an announced focused inspection on 14 February 2018 to confirm that the practice had carried out their plan to meet the legal requirements in relation to the breaches in regulations that we identified in our previous inspection on 6 June 2017. For this reason we only rated the location for the key questions to which this inspection related. This report covers our findings in relation to those requirements and also additional improvements made since our last inspection.

This report covers the announced follow-up inspection on 14 February 2018. We found the provider had made improvements since our inspection on 6 June 2017. The information we received enabled us to find the provider was meeting the regulations that it had previously breached for safe, effective, responsive and well-led services.

The comprehensive follow-up report for the June 2017 inspection can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Abbey Meads Medical Group on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Overall the practice is now rated as Good.

Our key findings were as follows:

• The practice put systems in place to enable the registered person to assess, monitor and improve the quality and safety of the service. These systems ensured scrutiny and overall responsibility is held by the partners.
• The practice recorded decisions made and action taken by the partners in relation to their governance role.
• The practice adequately assessed the risks to the security of confidential information, medicines and equipment caused by working in a shared building and took appropriate steps to minimise these risks.
• The practice ensured letters responding to patients complaints included information about how to escalate the complaints if they were not satisfied with the practice’ response.
• All staff had received training essential to their role. This included training on safeguarding children and vulnerable adults relevant to their role.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

Updated 28 March 2018

Updated 28 March 2018

Updated 28 March 2018

Updated 28 March 2018

Updated 28 March 2018

Updated 28 March 2018