Background to this inspection
Updated
16 September 2021
Constable Country Rural Medical Practice is situated at Heath Road, East Bergholt, Colchester CO7 6RT and has a branch site at the nearby village of Capel St Mary.
The practice is part of the Ipswich and East Suffolk clinical commissioning group (CCG).
Services are provided under a general medical service (GMS) contract with NHS England.
There are approximately 10,489 registered patients.
There are two female GP partners and one male GP partner, two salaried GPs, two advanced nurse practitioners, a clinical pharmacist and a pharmacy technician.
There are three practice nurses, two health care assistants, and two phlebotomists. These staff are supported by a practice manager and a team of reception and administration staff.
Practice opening hours are from 8am to 6.30pm Monday to Friday and extended hours appointments are offered at the GP+ service which operates in nearby Ipswich.
When the practice is closed, patients are able to access out of hours services by telephoning NHS 111.
Information published by Public Health England, rates the level of deprivation within the practice population group lower than the national average. The practice has a lower than national average of patients aged under 65 years old and a higher population of those aged over 65 years of age.
Male and female life expectancy in the practice geographical area is higher the national average at 82 years for males, compared to 80 years nationally and 86 years for females, compared to 83 years nationally.
Updated
16 September 2021
We carried out an announced review of Constable Country Rural Medical Practice on 5 August 2021. Overall, the practice is rated as Good.
The ratings for each key question are as follows:
Are services Responsive? - Good.
Following our previous inspection on 24 April 2019, the practice was rated as Good overall and for all key questions but requires improvement for providing responsive services.
The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Constable Country Rural Medical Practice on our website at www.cqc.org.uk
Why we carried out this review
This review was a review of information without undertaking a site visit to follow up on:
- How the practice had improved providing responsive services, including handling complaints and patient satisfaction with access to services.
- Breaches of regulation and ‘shoulds’ identified at our previous inspection.
- We carried forward the ‘Good’ ratings awarded at our last inspection for the key questions are services Safe, Effective, Caring and Well-Led as our information did not indicate a need to reassess these ratings.
How we carried out the review
Throughout the pandemic CQC has continued to regulate and respond to risk. However, taking into account the circumstances arising as a result of the pandemic, and in order to reduce risk, we have conducted our reviews differently.
This review was carried out remotely to avoid the need for a site visit. This was with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements.
This included
- Requesting evidence from the provider
- A remote review of the information provided
Our findings
We based our judgement of the quality of care at this service on a combination of:
- what we found in our review
- 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 and for all population groups.
We found that:
- 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, these improvements affected all patients in all population groups.
- The practice had taken action to reduce prescribing rates of antibacterial medicines. Prescribing rates for broad spectrum antibiotics had reduced from 12.8% to 9.5% which was in line with local and national averages. Prescribing rates for medicines used to treat uncomplicated urinary tract infections had reduced from 6.75 to 6.54 since our last inspection. Whilst this was an improvement, the rate was still above local and national averages. Other performance indicators monitored by CQC since the last inspection, including prescribing of gabapentin, hypnotic and multiple psychotropic medicines demonstrated performance in line with or better than local and national averages.
- The number of carers the practice had identified had reduced from 93 to 91, representing 0.86% of the population. The practice continually reviewed their carers list to ensure it was up to date and there were opportunities for the practice and patient to identify carers and offer an appropriate level of support such as health checks and flu vaccines.
Whilst we found no breaches of regulations, the provider should:
- Continue to monitor compliance with prescribing guidelines for the treatment of uncomplicated urinary tract infections.
- Continue to review how carers are identified so that appropriate support can be offered.
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