Walsall Wood Health Centre

Updated 24 August 2023

Walsall Wood Health Centre is located in Walsall at:

77 Lichfield Road

Walsall Wood

Walsall

WS9 9NP

The provider is registered with CQC to deliver the Regulated Activities; diagnostic and screening procedures, maternity and midwifery services, treatment of disease, disorder or injury and surgical procedures. The practice is commissioned by NHS Black Country Integrated Care Board (ICB) which is situated within the Black Country Integrated Care System (ICS) and delivers General Medical Services (GMS) to a population of about 1700. This is part of a contract held with NHS England. The practice is part of a wider network of GP practices.

Information published by Public Health England shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the fourth lowest decile (four 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 94.6% White 2.8% Asian, 1.6% Mixed and 1% Black. The age distribution of the practice population closely mirrors the local and national averages. There are more male patients registered at the practice compared to females.

There is one Principal GP who is supported by an Advanced Nurse Prescriber and a Practice Nurse. One of the reception staff has recently been trained in the role of a Health Care Assistant. The nurses provide nurse led clinics for long-term conditions. The GP is supported at the practice by a team of reception/administration staff. The practice manager and assistant practice manager provide managerial oversight.

The practice is open between 8am to 6.30pm Monday, Wednesday and Friday and is open until 7pm on Tuesday and Thursday. The practice offers a range of appointment types including book on the day, telephone consultations and advance appointments. Extended access is provided locally by WALDOC, where late evening and weekend appointments are available. Out of hours services are provided by NHS111.

Updated 24 August 2023

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Walsall Wood Health Centre on 15 June 2023 Overall, the practice is rated as requires improvement.

Safe – good

Effective - good

Caring - good

Responsive - requires improvement

Well-led - requires improvement

Following our previous inspection on 2 September 2022, the practice was rated requires improvement overall and for the safe, effective and responsive key questions and rated good for providing caring services and inadequate for providing well-led services.

The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Walsall Wood Health Centre on our website at www.cqc.org.uk

Why we carried out this inspection

We carried out this inspection to follow up breaches of regulation from a previous inspection.

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 short site visit.

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:

• There had been improvements to the way safe care and treatment was delivered since our previous inspection and governance processes had been strengthened.
• There were improvements to the management of patients’ medicines to ensure appropriate monitoring was in place.
• The practice provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm.
• Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
• Patients could not always access care and treatment in a timely way and we continued to identify a shortage of appointments with clinical staff.
• We found that there were not always sufficient numbers of suitably qualified and competent persons deployed at all times to provide safe care and treatment.
• Risk management processes were in place, and we found assessments of risks had been completed, however some areas were newly embedded and required further strengthening to ensure risks were mitigated.

We found a breach of regulation. The provider must:

• Establish effective systems and processes to ensure good governance in accordance with the fundamental standards of care.

Whilst we found breaches of regulation, the provider should:

• Ensure safety alerts are actioned in a timely way.
• Continue to review the documentation of care records in line with best practice.

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 Health Care