Background to this inspection
Updated
26 February 2021
Sunnyhill Healthcare Community Interest Company (CIC), also known as Arlesey Medical Centre, provides a range of primary medical services, including minor surgical procedures, from its location at High Street, Arlesey, SG15 6SN. It is part of the NHS Bedfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). The practice holds an Alternative Provider Medical Services (APMS) contract, this is a locally agreed contract with clinical commissioning groups and GP practices.
The practice serves a population of approximately 4,600 patients. The practice population is 94% white British.
The practice supports a local care home and a local residential home for patients with a learning disability.
Information published by Public Health England rates the level of deprivation within the practice population group as nine on a scale of one to ten. Level one represents the highest levels of deprivation and level ten the lowest.
The clinical team consists of one lead GP (male) and a salaried GP (male). The practice uses regular locum GPs. The practice also employs a female senior nurse practitioner / prescriber. The team is supported by a practice manager and a team of non-clinical, administrative staff.
The practice operates from a single storey property that is leased from the local authority. The medical centre utilises part of this building and other areas are used by the local library, community centre and village hall. Patient toilet facilities are shared with these services. There is disabled access throughout. There is a car park outside the surgery, with disabled parking available.
Sunnyhill Healthcare CIC is open from 7am to 6.30pm on Monday and Friday, 8am to 6.30pm on Tuesday and Thursday and 7.30am to 6.30pm on Wednesday. When the practice is closed, out of hours services are can be accessed via the NHS 111 service. Information about this is available in the practice and on the practice website.
The practice provides family planning, surgical procedures, maternity and midwifery services, treatment of disease, disorder or injury and diagnostic and screening procedures as their regulated activities.
Updated
26 February 2021
The service is rated as Inadequate overall.
We carried out an announced focused inspection at Sunnyhill Healthcare C.I.C. on 2 February 2021 to confirm that the practice had carried out the necessary improvements in relation to the breaches of regulation found at the October 2020 inspection.
The practice was placed into special measures following a comprehensive inspection on 11 September 2019. We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Sunnyhill Healthcare C.I.C on 14 October 2020 following this period of special measures.
The practice received a further overall rating of inadequate and remained in special measures at our inspection on 14 October 2020 when warning notices were issued. This rating will remain unchanged until we undertake a further full comprehensive inspection within six months of the publication date of the initial report.
The full comprehensive reports from the September 2019 and October 2020 inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Sunnyhill healthcare C.I.C. on our website at www.cqc.org.uk
Our judgement of the quality of care at this service is based 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.
At the February 2021 inspection we found:
- The practice was compliant with the warning notices issued in October 2020.
- The practice had improved systems to monitor high-risk medicines. Clinical records we checked showed this was effective.
- The practice had improved systems to ensure that diagnosis of diabetes was effective. Clinical records we checked showed one patient with a potentially missed diagnosis. This patient had been contacted for review by the end of the inspection.
- We saw that the system for completing medicine reviews had been improved and we saw that reviews completed after December 2020 were structured and well documented. The practice had an action plan in place to complete reviews for all relevant patients on a monthly basis.
- The practice has increased the number of registered carers to 1.3% of their practice population and have been proactively contacting patients to identify those with caring responsibilities.
Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.
Dr Rosie Benneyworth BS BM BMedSci MRCGP
Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care