The Arrival Practice

Updated 4 September 2023

The Arrival Practice is located in Stockton at:

The Arrival Practice

Endurance House

Clarence Street

Stockton-on-Tees

TS18 2EP

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

The practice is situated within The Tees Valley Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and delivers General Medical Services (GMS) contract to a patient population of about 3,000. This is part of a contract held with NHS England. The practice scores one on the deprivation measurement scale; the deprivation scale goes from one to ten, with one being the most deprived. People living in more deprived areas tend to have greater need for health services. 56% of the practice population is made up of either asylum seekers or refugees.

The practice has two GP partners one male and one female, also a salaried GP (female). A team including nurse practitioners, practice nurse and specialist nurse are employed by the practice. The GPs and nurses are supported at the practice by a team of reception staff including a practice manager and a deputy manager. The staff did not solely work at this practice but split their time at another local practice which is a different registered provider.

Practice opening hours are from 08.30 – 18.00 Monday to Friday. Appointments are available from 09.00 – 17.30 Monday to Friday. The practice offers a range of appointments, telephone consultation, video consultation and face to face appointments. When the practice is closed, patients can access out of hour’s services by telephoning NHS 111.

The practice is part of a wider network of GP practices known as Stockton Primary Care Network (PCN). Stockton PCN includes six other practices.

Updated 4 September 2023

We carried out an announced inspection at the Arrival Practice on 31 July – 2 August 2023. Overall, the practice is rated as good.

The ratings for the key questions are as follows:

Safe – Good

Effective – Not inspected, rating of Good carried forward from previous inspection

Caring - Not inspected, rating of Good carried forward from previous inspection

Responsive - Not inspected, rating of Outstanding carried forward from previous inspection

Well-led - Not inspected, rating of Good carried forward from previous inspection

Following our previous inspection on 21 June 2022, the practice was rated Good overall and Requires Improvement for Safe.

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

Why we carried out this inspection

This inspection was a focussed inspection following a rating of Requires Improvement in Safe.

How we carried out the inspection/review

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 and discussing findings with the provider
• 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:

• The practice provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm.
• The practice had significantly improved their governance around safeguarding systems and processes.
• The practice had improved its medicine management meaning that they now had processes in place to manage non-medical prescribers competencies.
• Emergency medicine kept on site was not extensive and easily accessible to staff members when required.
• 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.
• The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centre care.

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

• Improve how medicine reviews are recorded so it is clear for other health professionals when viewing records
• Continue to improve the monitoring of competencies of non-medical prescribers

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