St James Medical Practice

Updated 17 August 2018

St James Medical Centre is in the NHS West Norfolk Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) area. The practice is situated in the centre of Kings Lynn and is contracted to provide alternative primary medical services to approximately 16,600 registered patients. The practice also has an Endoscopy unit, but this was not inspected as part of this inspection.

There are eight GP partners (six male and two female) and two salaried GPs (one male and one female) with a third due to commence employment in September 2018. The practice also has an advance nurse practitioner and an emergency care practitioner. There are eight practice nurses and four healthcare assistant/phlebotomists. A number of administrative staff support them including a practice manager, operations manager, receptionists and administrators.

The practice is open between 7.30am and 7pm on Mondays and from 7.30am to 6.30pm Tuesday to Friday. The practice is working with the CCG and other local practices to offer appointments to patients at various sites until 8pm and at the weekend.

Outside of practice opening hours, patients are directed to the local out of hours service provide by Herts Urgent Care through NHS 111.

According to Public Health England information, the practice population has an average number of patients across all the age groups, compared to to the local and national average. Although there are pockets of deprivation there is generally a low level of deprivation in the area.

Updated 17 August 2018

This practice is rated as Good overall. (Previous rating September 2015 – Good)

The key questions at this inspection are rated as:

Are services safe? – Good

Are services effective? – Good

Are services caring? – Good

Are services responsive? – Good

Are services well-led? - Good

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at St James Medical Centre on 24 July 2018. We carried out this inspection as part of our inspection programme.

At this inspection we found:

• The practice partnership had changed during the preceding 18 months, new clinical staff had been employed and additional management support had been put in place. The practice had reviewed the skill mix within the teams and had employed advance nurse practitioners and an emergency care practitioner offering greater flexibility of appointments.
• The practice had clear and comprehensive systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. When incidents did happen, the practice learned from them and improved their processes.
• The practice routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided. It ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence-based guidelines.
• Staff involved and treated patients with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
• The practice had implemented a new appointment system ensuring every patient who requested an appointment on the day was spoken too by a clinical staff member. Patients who wished to see a clinician of their choice were able to pre-book an appointment. Patients found the appointment system easy to use and reported that they were able to access care when they needed it.
• Practice staff told us they worked as a cohesive team to care for their patients.
• There was a strong focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels of the organisation.
• The practice staff felt they were well supported and valued by the partners.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Continue to develop systems and processes to identify carers to ensure they receive appropriate support.
• Embed the system to ensure that all prescription stationary is recorded and monitored.
• Continue to monitor and ensure safe prescribing in respect of Hypnotics medicines.
• Continue to develop systems and processes to encourage and improve the uptake of the national cervical screening programme.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP
Chief Inspector of General Practice

Please refer to the detailed report and the evidence tables for further information.

Updated 17 August 2018

Updated 17 August 2018

Updated 17 August 2018

Updated 17 August 2018

Updated 17 August 2018

Updated 17 August 2018