The Care Quality Commission
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Archived: Duddon Valley Medical Practice

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

Kirkby Surgery, Askew Gate, Kirkby-in-Furness, Cumbria, LA17 7TE (01229) 889247

Provided and run by:
Duddon Valley Medical Practice

Important: The provider of this service changed. See new profile

All Inspections

8 December 2014

During a routine inspection

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out a planned comprehensive inspection of Duddon Valley Medical Practice on 25 November 2014.

Overall, we rated the practice as good. Our key findings were as follows:

  • The practice covered a large geographical and rural area; services had been designed to meet the needs of the local population.
  • We saw that the practice had made improvements which addressed the concerns we raised, at our inspection in May 2014, about supporting staff.
  • Feedback from patients was positive; they told us staff treated them with respect and kindness.
  • Staff reported feeling supported and able to voice any concerns or make suggestions for improvement.
  • The practice was visibly clean and tidy.
  • The practice learned from incidents and took action to prevent any recurrence.

We saw the following areas of outstanding practice:

The practice demonstrated effective leadership, outstanding teamwork and organisational resilience, for example the practice had improved itself despite going through a period of turbulence.

We saw that there was a high level of commitment to the practice by all the staff working there to care for their patients and each other. For example the practice was undergoing a full review of their policies and procedures. All staff were involved with this process, for instance, clinical staff had been asked to review their job descriptions to ensure they reflect the skills required to deliver the services provided from this small rural practice.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

01 May 2014

During a routine inspection

Duddon Valley serves 3,600 patients across their two surgeries at Kirkby in Furness and Foxfield Rd, Broughton in Furness. Patients register with the practice and can then choose which surgery to attend or where to pick their medicines up from.  There are normally two GP’s at the practice, however at the time of inspection one was off on long-term leave with no known return date, so the practice had one full-time male GP and a female locum GP 2 days a week.  

The service is registered with CQC for the regulated activities of treatment of disease, disorder and injury, and diagnostic and screening services. Maternity, midwifery and family planning services are also registered, as are minor surgical procedures.

Overall, we found the service provided caring and sympathetic, patient-centred care. People were able to access the service when required. People we spoke with and the comment cards we reviewed were almost all positive, with people highlighting the good standard of care provided. The surgeries and treatment rooms were clean and tidy, and on the whole medicines were managed safely.

We found the practice had made many improvements over the last three months and many previously absent procedures had recently been implemented, such as disciplinary and grievance policies for staff. However, at the time of inspection workers were not appropriately supported in their roles through a system of supervisions and appraisals, which would identify problems and learning needs. This could have a negative impact on patient outcomes.