Dr Clifford Ojukwu - Care Quality Commission

Background to this inspection

Updated 7 March 2017

Dr C Ojukwu’s practice, known locally as Birmingham Heartlands Surgery, is an inner city practice in Birmingham that provides primary medical services to patients. The practice is a single handed GP practice that is supported by regular locum GPs, a practice manager, a practice nurse, a health care assistant and reception staff. There were 3169 patients registered with the practice at the time of the inspection.

The practice is located in an area of high deprivation with black, minority ethnic (BME) community groups making up over 60% of the practice population group. The practice has high numbers of children, young patients and vulnerable groups within the practice population.

The practice is open from 9am to 6.30pm Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays and from 9.30 to 1.30pm on Wednesday with appointments available within these times. The practice is closed at weekends. When the practice is closed during daytime hours contracted cover is provided by Badger Medical Group. Home visits are available for patients who are too ill to attend the practice for appointments. There is also an online service which allows patients to order repeat prescriptions and book appointments. The practice opens from 6.30pm to 8pm on Thursdays for extended hours appointments with the GP.

The practice does not provide an out-of-hours service but has alternative arrangements in place for patients to be seen when the practice is closed. If patients call the practice when it is closed, an answerphone message gives the telephone number they should ring depending on the circumstances. Information on the out-of-hours service (provided by Badger) is provided to patients and is available on the practice’s website and in the patient leaflet.

The practice treats patients of all ages and provides a range of medical services. This includes specialist clinics for diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (lung disease). It also offers childhood immunisations, family planning, travel health vaccines, smoking cessation and a minor surgery service.

Birmingham Heartlands Surgery has a General Medical Services (GMS) contract. The GMS contract is the contract between general practices and NHS England for delivering primary care services to local communities. The practice has completed the extension to the building since our last inspection and this is beneficial to patients and staff.

Overall inspection

Good

Updated 7 March 2017

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out a focused inspection of Dr C Ojukwu on 20 October 2016 to check that action had been taken since our previous inspection on 15 September 2015. At the inspection in September 2015 the practice was rated as requires improvement overall. The practice was rated good for effective and well led services, but rated requires improvement for safe, caring and responsive.

In September 2015 we found that the practice required improvement in the safe domain due to a breach of regulations relating to safe care and treatment. This was because:

the nurse treatment room was not adequately maintained so that the risk of infection could be managed effectively for the safety of patients and staff.

Additional improvements were required because:

The provider had not taken action to show how they intended to address the results shown in the National GP Patient Surveys for 2014/2015.
The health and safety of staff was not assured when using computer equipment situated in the nurse’s treatment room.
The provider needed to take action to improve the availability of non-urgent appointments.

We inspected the practice on 20 October 2016 to check that they had followed their action plan and to confirm that they now met legal requirements. This report covers our findings in relation to those requirements and also additional improvements made since our last inspection. You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection of Dr C Ojukwu on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Our key findings for this inspection were as follows:

The provider had made improvements:

An extension to the practice building had been completed to provide additional treatment rooms. All existing consulting/treatment rooms had been refurbished as part of the restructuring which meant effective management of infection control could be maintained in the nurses room and throughout the building.
The provider had developed a plan of action plan to show how the practice aimed to address the results shown in the National GP Patient Surveys and the action they had taken. This included annual practice patient surveys, compilation of surveys in alternative languages to reach non-English speaking patients to gain their views of the practice, installation of an upgraded telephone system to improve telephone access for patients and the planned trial of an earlier opening time from 9am with effect from 2 January 2017.
Appropriate display screen assessments had been completed for the use of computer equipment in the nurses room. Records confirmed that health and safety guidelines were being followed.
The provider had made suitable arrangements to improve the availability of non-urgent appointments. Cover was provided by Badger Medical for daytime hours when the practice was closed.

However there was an area where the provider should make improvements:

Continue to ensure continued improvements to patient satisfaction are made in response to feedback from the National GP Patient Survey information.

The practice was rated good for safe and caring services and requires improvement for responsive. The practice is now rated good overall.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP)

Chief Inspector of General Practice