The Cottons Medical Centre

Updated 21 November 2023

The Cottons Medical Centre is located in Raunds, near Wellingborough at:

The Cottons

Meadow Lane, Raunds

Wellingborough

NN9 6UA

The provider is registered with CQC to deliver the Regulated Activities, diagnostic and screening procedures, family planning, maternity and midwifery services, surgical procedures and treatment of disease, disorder or injury.

The practice is situated within the NHS Northamptonshire Integrated Care System (ICS) and delivers General Medical Services (GMS) to a patient population of about 10,045. This is part of a contract held with NHS England.

The practice is part of a wider network of GP practices, East Northants Primary Care Network (PCN), that enables them to work with other practices in the area to deliver care.

Information published by Office for Health Improvement and Disparities shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the 8th decile (8 of 10). The lower the decile, the more deprived the practice population is relative to others.

According to the latest available data, the ethnic make-up of the practice area is 98% White, 1% Asian, and 1% Mixed.

The age distribution of the practice population closely mirrors the local and national averages with a slightly higher than average number of patients aged 70 to 84 years of age.

The practice is led by 4 GP partners and employs a salaried GP. The nursing team consists of a nurse manager, 2 community nurses, a nurse practitioner, 2 practice nurses and a health care assistant. There is a team of reception and administrative staff all led by a practice manager and a deputy practice manager.

The practice is open between 8am to 6.30pm Monday to Friday. The practice offers a range of appointment types including book on the day, telephone consultations and advance appointments.

Extended access is provided locally by The East Northants GP Extended Access Service, where late evening and weekend appointments are available.

When the practice is closed, out of hours services can be accessed via the NHS 111 service.

Updated 21 November 2023

We carried out an announced focused inspection at The Cottons Medical Centre on 28 June 2023. Overall, the practice is rated as good.

Safe - good

Effective - good

Responsive - requires improvement

Well-led - good

Following our previous inspection on 19 May 2022, the practice was rated good overall and for all key questions except for providing safe services they were rated as requires improvement.

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

Why we carried out this inspection

We carried out this inspection to follow up breaches of regulation from a previous inspection.

How we carried out the inspection/review

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 had clear systems, practices and processes to keep people safe and safeguarded from abuse.
• Improvements had been made to the systems and processes in place to effectively monitor the safe use of medicines.
• The system for managing safety alerts was embedded in the practice. We noted appropriate actions had been taken for safety alerts received.
• Some patients with long-term conditions were overdue a review of their medicines and conditions. The practice had put measures in place to address this.
• There was a programme of quality improvement in place and staff had received training to carry out their roles.
• Actions had been taken to improve access to the practice, including appointment booking. However, it was too soon to assess the impact of these improvements.
• Feedback from staff was generally positive. Staff reported they felt supported by the GPs and practice manager.

Whilst we found no breaches of regulations, the provider should:

• Follow up patients who do not respond to invitations for a review of their medicines.
• Continue with work to carry out medicine and long-term condition reviews in line with current guidelines.
• Continue to promote the uptake of cervical screening.
• Continue to take measures to improve access to the service.

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