Danebridge Medical Practice

Updated 11 November 2022

Danebridge Medical Practice is located in Northwich at:

29 London Road

Northwich

Cheshire

CW9 5HR

The provider has one branch surgery, Kingsmead Medical Centre, located at:

2 Kingsmead

Regency Way

Northwich

Cheshire

CW9 8UW

The provider is registered with CQC to deliver the Regulated Activities; diagnostic and screening procedures, family planning, maternity and midwifery services, surgical procedures and treatment of disease, disorder or injury. These are delivered from both sites.

The practice is situated within the Cheshire and Merseyside Integrated Care Board (ICB) and delivers General Medical Services (GMS) to a patient population of about 24,830. This is part of a contract held with NHS England. The practice is part of Northwich Primary Care Network.

Information published by Public Health England shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the ninth decile (nine 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 97.8% white, 1.1% Asian, 0.8% mixed, 0.2% black and 0.1% other.

The practice has a team of eight partner GPs. There are also six salaried GPs and six GP registrars (a registrar is a qualified doctor who is training to become a GP through a period of working and training in a practice). The practice has a team of nine nurses and a nurse team leader. There are two advanced nurse practitioners, four health care assistants, one trainee health care worker and two care co-ordinators, two clinical pharmacists, two pharmacy technicians and three muscular skeletal practitioners. Clinicians are supported by the practice business manager, human resources manager, IT manager, patient services manager and reception and administrative staff. The practice has a contract with two self-employed counsellors to provide a service to patients.

Danebridge Medical Practice is open 8am to 7pm Monday and Tuesday and 8am to 6.30pm Wednesday to Friday. Kingsmead Medical Centre is open between 8am to 6.30pm Monday to Friday. The practice offers a range of appointment types including book on the day, telephone consultations and advance appointments.

Danebridge Medical Practice offers extended access every Monday and Tuesday. Northwich Primary Care Network (PCN) also offer extended hours appointments at selected practices known as GP Hubs. These appointments are available to any registered patients from any practice within the boundaries of Northwich. Out of hours services are accessed by calling NHS 111.

Updated 11 November 2022

We carried out an announced focused inspection at Danebridge Medical Practice on 12 October 2022.

Overall, the practice is rated as Good.

Safe - Good

Effective - Good

Caring - Good

Responsive - Good

Well-led – Good

Following our previous inspection on 18 May 2021, the practice was rated Good overall and Requires Improvement for providing Safe services. This inspection focused on the breaches of regulation in the Safe domain.

At this inspection we carried over the ratings from the previous inspection for the Effective, Caring, Responsive and Well-led domains.

The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Danebridge Medical Practice on our website at www.cqc.org.uk

Why we carried out this inspection

This inspection was a focused follow-up of information without undertaking a site visit to follow up on:

• The breaches of regulation from the inspection on 18 May 2021.
• The areas identified where the provider should make improvements from the inspection on 18 May 2021.

How we carried out the inspection

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 inspections differently.

This inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to spend a minimum amount of time on site. This was with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements.

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.

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 have rated this practice as Good overall

We found that:

• Action had been taken to ensure patients had the required monitoring of their health before repeat medications were prescribed. Medication was being reviewed in a timely way and patients were appropriately coded, so that their health monitoring requirements could be easily identified.

The provider had also made improvements to the service as recommended in the ‘shoulds’ from the last inspection report.

• A risk assessment to determine the range of emergency medicines held was in place.
• The provider was able to demonstrate how they monitored the prescribing competence of non-medical prescribers.
• The protocol for the management of blood test results had been revised.
• A system had been established to ensure Do Not Attempt Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (DNACPR) decisions documented all the required information.
• Improvements had been made to the safety systems and risk records.

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