Station Drive Surgery

Updated 1 December 2022

Station Drive Surgery is located in Ludlow, Shropshire at:

The Surgery

Station Drive

Ludlow

SY8 2AB

The provider is registered with CQC to deliver the Regulated Activities; diagnostic and screening procedures, treatment of disease, disorder or injury, family planning and surgical procedures.

The practice is situated within the Shropshire Telford and Wrekin Integrated Care System (ICS) and delivers General Medical Services (GMS) to a patient population of about 8,885. This is part of a contract held with NHS England.

The practice is part of a wider network of GP practices known as South West Shropshire Primary Care Network (including Ludlow-Portcullis, Clun, Craven Arms, Bishops Caste, Church Stretton practices).

Information published by Public Health England shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the sixth less deprived decile (six of 10). The lower the decile, the more deprived the practice population is relative to others.

According to the latest available data, the ethnic make-up of the practice area is 98.5% White, 0.1% Black, 0.6% Asian, 0.7% Mixed.

The practice has more patients over the age of 60 years.

The practice staffing comprises:

• Three GPs partners.
• Two Advance Nurse Practitioner and a Physician Associate
• One associate GP
• Two Counsellors
• One clinical pharmacist
• Three social prescribers and one care coordinator
• A team of nine nurses and health care assistants
• Two senior managers, four reception leads and a team of administrative and reception staff.

The practice is open between 8am to 8pm Monday to Friday and 8.30am to 12.30pm on alternate Saturdays. The practice offers a range of appointment types including book on the day, telephone consultations, video consultations and advance appointments.

Out of hours services are provided by Shropdoc via NHS 111.

Further information is available on the practice website www.stationdrivesurgery.co.uk/

Updated 1 December 2022

We carried out an announced comprehensive at Station Drive Surgery on 26/09/2022. Overall, the practice is rated as good.

Safe - good

Effective - good

Caring - good

Responsive - outstanding

Well-led - good

Following our previous inspection on 19 July 2016 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 Station Drive Surgery on our website at www.cqc.org.uk

Why we carried out this inspection

We carried out this inspection in line with our inspection priorities.

How we carried out the inspection

This inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to spend a minimum amount of time on site.

This included:

• Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing.
• Completing clinical searches on the practice’s patient records system (this was with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements).
• Reviewing patient records to identify issues and clarify actions taken by the provider.
• Requesting evidence from the provider.
• A site visit to surgery
• Staff feedback questionnaires.

Our findings

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 found that:

• The practice provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm.
• Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs.
• Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care. Patient and stakeholder feedback was very positive about the care received.
• The practice adjusted how it delivered services to meet the needs of patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.
• The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centred care.

We rated the practice as outstanding for providing a responsive service because:

• The practice had responded to the needs of its population by delivering services differently during the pandemic. For example, one GP undertook three visits to Ludlow Community Hospital every day between 8am and 10pm, seven days a week to ensure they could remain open with both covid positive and covid negative patients. Station Drive Surgery led the vaccination scheme and continued to offer weekly walk-in clinics.
• They had worked closely with the immigrant population and the traveller community and worked towards tackling inequalities through various working partnerships.
• The practice demonstrated high commitment to the needs of the local community. The offered free pop-up screening, regular attendance to the local breastfeeding group and was also involved with the “Hands Together Ludlow’s Mentoring Scheme”, working to provide role models, peer support and improved employment prospects for young people.
• GP’s were involved with community first aid and CPR courses aimed at parents, carers and grandparents and carried out educational sessions in the community, covering aspects such as home emergency care including sepsis and meningitis.
• Patients were very positive about access to appointments at the practice. All four indicators from the national GP survey were above the local and national averages with 89.5% of respondents stating they were satisfied with the appointment offered. Eighty four percent responded positively to the overall experience of making an appointment.

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

• Ensure eligible patients receive a structured medicines review.
• The escalation route for patients to follow, should they not be happy with the outcome of the investigation into their complaint, should be shared in the complaint response letters.
• Review and monitor historical medicines alerts to ensure compliance.
• Ensure staff records include details of immunisation.
• Review staff training records to ensure all staff have received the appropriate training.

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 Hospitals and Interim Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services