The Alney Practice

Updated 11 February 2020

The Alney Practice is a dispensing practice that provides primary care from two surgeries, one of which is located in Highnam and the other in Gloucester. On 1 April 2018, the College Yard and Highnam Surgery merged with Cheltenham Road Surgery to form ‘The Alney Practice’. Most staff work across both sites.

Address details for both the main and branch sites are:

The Alney Practice

Highnam Surgery

Lassington Lane,

Highnam,

Gloucester

GL2 8DH.

Telephone: 01452 529699

Cheltenham Road Surgery16 Cheltenham RoadGloucesterGloucestershireGL2 OLS

Telephone: 

Website (main and branch surgeries): www.thealneypractice.co.uk

Patients will be offered the earliest appointment irrespective of location but the practice will always try to accommodate them in the location that is most convenient to their home address. The practice is purpose built with patient services located on the ground floor of the building. The practice has an expanding patient population of 12,419 of which the highest proportion are young families or of working age. The practice has five GP partners (two male, three female). The practice employs nine nurses, five dispensary staff, a practice manager and reception/administration staff. Most staff work part-time.

The practice is open five days of the week. Monday to Thursday it is open 8.30am – 7.00pm and Friday 8.30-6.30pm. The practice is closed for lunch every day between 1pm and 2pm. The practice has opted out of the Out of Hours primary care provision. This is provided by another provider Care UK.

Updated 11 February 2020

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection of The Alney Practice on 02 December 2019, following our annual review of the information available to us including information provided by the practice. Our review indicated that there may have been a significant change to the quality of care provided since the last inspection.

This inspection focused on the following key questions:

• Are services safe?
• Are services effective?
• Are services caring?
• Are services responsive?
• Are services well-led?

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
• information from the provider, patients, the public and other organisations.

We rated the practice as Good overall. All population groups were rated Good except people experiencing poor mental health, which was rated as Requires Improvement.

We rated the practice as requires improvement for providing responsive services because:

• Patients experiencing poor mental health did not always have improved outcomes. Patient mental health indicators were below local clinical commissioning group (CCG) and national averages, and exception reporting for these patients exceeded local and national averages.
• The practice had poor patient feedback in relation to their ability to be able to access care in a timely way.

We rated the practice as good for providing safe, effective, caring and well-led services because:

• Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs, except for patients experiencing poor mental health, and families, children and young people.
• Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
• Services were tailored to meet the needs of individual patients. They were delivered in a flexible way that ensured choice and continuity of care.
• There were clear responsibilities, roles and systems of accountability to support good governance.

We found areas where the provider should make improvements. The provider should:

• Continue with measures to monitor and improve patient satisfaction with services.
• Continue with action to improve the uptake of cervical cancer screening.
• Continue with measures to improve outcomes for patients experiencing poor mental health. Patient mental health indicators were below local clinical commissioning group (CCG) and national averages, and exception reporting for these patients exceeded local and national averages.
• Continue with measures to resolve data quality issues regarding childhood immunisations.

(Please refer to the requirement notice section at the end of the report for more detail).

Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP

Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care

Updated 11 February 2020

Updated 11 February 2020

Updated 11 February 2020

Updated 11 February 2020

Updated 11 February 2020

Updated 11 February 2020