Huntingdon Road Surgery

Updated 3 November 2023

Huntingdon Road Surgery is located in Cambridge at:

1 Huntingdon Road

Cambridge

Cambridgeshire

CB3 0DB

The practice has a branch surgery at:

Girton Road Surgery

1 Pepys Way

Girton

Cambridgeshire

CB3 0PA

The Girton Road Surgery also includes a dispensary. We inspected both Huntingdon Road Surgery, Girton Road Surgery and the dispensary as part of our inspection.

The provider is registered with CQC to deliver the Regulated Activities; diagnostic and screening procedures, maternity and midwifery services and treatment of disease, disorder or injury and surgical procedures. These are delivered from both sites.

The practice offers services from both a main practice and a branch surgery. Patients can access services at either surgery.

The practice is situated within the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Integrated Care System (ICS) and delivers General Medical Services (GMS) to a patient population of about 22, 542. This is part of a contract held with NHS England.

The practice is part of a wider network of GP practices known as the Cantab Primary Care Network (PCN). One of the Huntingdon Road partners Dr Kevin Webb is the clinical director of this PCN.

Information published by Office for Health Improvement and Disparities shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the tenth decile (10 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 10.1% Asian, 85.3% White, 0.9% Black, 2.8% Mixed, and 1% Other.

The age distribution of the practice population shows a higher young people and working-age population and below the national average for older people. There are more male patients registered at the practice compared to females.

There is a team of 13 GPs who provide cover at both practices. The practice has a team of 9 nurses who provide nurse led clinics for long-term condition of use of both the main and the branch locations. The GPs are supported at the practice by a team of reception/administration staff. The operations manager and business manager are based at the main location to provide managerial oversight.

The practice is open between 8.15 am to 6 pm 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 Cambs GP Network, where late evening and weekend appointments are available. Out of hours services are provided by NHS 111.

Updated 3 November 2023

We carried out an announced comprehensive at Huntingdon Road Surgery on 25 August 2023. Overall, the practice is rated as good.

Safe - good

Effective - good

Caring - good

Responsive - good

Well-led - outstanding

Following our previous inspection on 01 October 2021, the practice was rated good overall and for all key questions but effective that was rated requires improvement.

At this inspection, we found that those areas previously regarded as requires improvement practice were now embedded throughout the majority of the GP practice. The practice had improved clinically and they had demonstrated areas previously regarded as good had improved and were embedded fully in the practice, therefore, caring, responsive and well led services were considered to be good.

The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Huntingdon Road Surgery 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/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 provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm and patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs. Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
• 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-centred care.
• Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns and report incidents and near misses. All opportunities for learning from internal and external incidents were maximised.
• The practice used innovative and proactive methods to improve patient outcomes, working with other local providers and the surrounding community to share and deliver best practices. There was a wide range of services, clinical and non-clinical that recognised that a patient’s emotional and social needs were as important as their physical needs.
• Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity, and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.
• Information about services and how to complain was available and easy to understand.
• Urgent and non-urgent patients, were referred appropriately and efficiently to the most suitable health care professional.
• There was a clear leadership structure that promoted teaching, training, and development opportunities for staff and trainee GPs.

We saw several areas of wide ranging innovations the practice had introduced:

• In response to patient feedback and identifying barriers to accessing support for children and young people’s mental health, the practice implemented a mental health community multi-disciplinary approach to care to provide holistic care. This involved the local community to ensure the highest quality care was delivered.
• There was a strong emphasis on staff well-being and leaders would encourage the staff to engage in weekly mental health support walks.
• There was a strong emphasis on developing health coaching innovations in response to recognising improvements in life expectancy and reducing hospital admissions. Patients felt in control and supported by the practice to manage their own health as much as possible.
• The practice prided itself on continuity of care and there was a named doctor for the patients. In some cases, we saw the same GP had overseen the care of a patient for over 30 years. The leadership team had been invited to present this innovation within the Houses of Parliament.
• Carers had an allocated staff contact at the practice to contact and were supported in a personalised manner.

We identified that the practice should:

• Take action to engage in population group to improve understanding of the barriers to cervical screening.Encourage patients to register as carers in order to improve support and understand barriers for patients who have not registered as a carer at the practice.

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