The Care Quality Commission
  • Doctor
  • GP practice

Valentine Medical Centre

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

2 Smethurst Street, Blackley, Manchester, Greater Manchester, M9 8PP (0161) 241 5480

Provided and run by:
Valentine Medical Centre

All Inspections

23 November 2023

During a routine inspection

We carried out an announced comprehensive at Valentine Medical Centre on 23 November 2023. Overall, the practice is rated as good.

Safe – good

Effective - good

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

Responsive – requires improvement

Well-led - good

Following our previous inspection on 24 November 2015 the practice was rated good overall and for all key questions.

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

Why we carried out this inspection

We carried out this inspection in line with our inspection priorities.

How we carried out the inspection

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 (this was with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements).
  • 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.
  • Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs.
  • Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.
  • 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:

  • Continue with steps taken to improve the patient experience of accessing the practice by telephone and their satisfaction levels with appointment access.
  • Continue efforts to improve uptake for childhood immunisations.
  • Continue to improve uptake for cervical cytology cancer screening.
  • Take action to ensure all medication reviews are appropriately recorded on the patient record.

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

24 November 2015

During a routine inspection

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Valentine Medical Centre on 24 November 2015. Overall the practice is rated as good.

Our key findings across all the areas we inspected were as follows:

  • The practice had a clinical lead structure in place which supported their patients and staff in areas of: safeguarding, medicines management, learning disabilities, human resources (HR), quality and financial.
  • There was a strong and clear leadership structure and staff felt extremely supported by management team.
  • Patient services were identified and implemented on site, one example was the practice offered an outreach service for patients with the local citizen’s advice.
  • The practice had clean and good facilities, which were well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs with patient access to both ground and first levels via lift.
  • There was an open and transparent approach to safety and an effective system in place for reporting and recording significant events.
  • Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance. Staff had the skills, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care and treatment.
  • Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.
  • The provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the Duty of Candour.

We saw a couple of areas of outstanding practice:

The medicine management lead and team were very proactive to ensure patient’s received the correct medication and checks. We saw evidence of the prescription manager working daily with all GPs, thoroughly checking each prescription from discharge letters to ensure they were actioned immediately. The lead GP had a repeat prescribing system in place and we saw evidence of a recent presentation referring to a recent prescribing review audit. This highlighted clear responsibilities of clinical staff and each process of the review.

The practice had a mission statement which all staff were very positive about, each member we spoke told us they felt involved in making the statement and this was a true reflection of the practice. This was evidenced by the staff annual away days where the mission statement was made up on a T-Shirt for each staff to wear, this was in 2012.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice