Meneage Street Surgery

Updated 22 March 2019

Meneage Street Surgery is situated in the town of Helston. The practice is located at one site. The address of the main practice is 100 Meneage Street, Helston, Cornwall, TR13 8RF

The practice provides a service to approximately 5,922 patients of a diverse age group and offers the following regulated activities:

Treatment of disease, disorder or injury

Diagnostic and screening procedures

Maternity and midwifery services and

Surgical procedures

Family Planning

The deprivation decile rating for this area is six (with one being the most deprived and 10 being the least deprived). The 2011 census data showed that majority of the local population identified themselves as being White British. The mix of male and female patients were equal. The average life expectancy for females was 83 years and 80 years for males (equal to national averages). The practice has about 37% of its practice population over the age of 65 years compared to the national average of 27%.

There are three GP partners, one salaried GP, two practice nurses and one practice matron, three health care assistants and additional administration staff. The team are managed by a managing partner/practice manager and a deputy practice manager.

Patients using the practice also have access to health visitors, audiology screening, in house counsellors, carer support workers, district nurses and midwives who are co-located at the practice. Other health care professionals visited the practice regularly. For example, addiction and women’s aid support workers.

The premises are open between 8am and 7pm on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays and between 8am- and 8pm on Wednesdays and between 8am-6.30pm on Fridays. The practice were working with Kernow Clinical Commissioning Group, St Austell Health care and the Patient Participation Group and participated in an Improved Access Service to provide appointments in extended hours.

Outside of these times patients are directed to contact the out of hour’s service and the NHS 111 number. This is in line with local contract arrangements.

The practice offers a range of appointment types including face to face same day appointments, telephone consultations, advance appointments and online services such as access to records, online appointments and repeat prescription requests.

The practice train 3rd year medical students and student nurses.

Updated 22 March 2019

We carried out an announced comprehensive at Meneage Street Surgery on 20 February 2019 as part of our inspection programme.

This practice is rated as Good overall. (Previous rating September 2015 – Good)

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.

At this inspection we found:

• The practice had recently had major partnership changes due to retirement and ill health but continued with effective succession planning.
• Leaders were knowledgeable about issues and priorities relating to the quality and future of services and participated in external groups to ensure they understood the local changes and challenges.
• The practice had clear systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. When incidents did happen, the practice recognised where systems and processes had worked well and improved their processes where appropriate.
• The practice routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided. It ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence- based guidelines.
• Medicines and high risk medicines were managed well.
• Staff involved and treated patients with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
• Patients found the appointment system easy to use and reported that they were able to access care when they needed it.
• There was a strong focus on continuous learning, improvement and involvement at all levels of the organisation.
• Staff said the leadership team were supportive and approachable and added that the practice was a good place to work.
• The staff worked effectively with other practices in the area and took part in the Improving patient access programme.

We saw three areas of Outstanding practice:

• The practice had employed a prescribing practice matron in the last 18 months. It had been estimated that the role had saved 200 GP hours in the last quarter and contributed to continued low hospital admissions, increased identification of carers and higher than local and national averages of dementia Quality and Outcome Framework scores.
• The practice manager had developed, maintained and monitored many systems, spreadsheets and tools for the effective running of the practice and safety of patients. These included systems to monitor referrals; appointment availability and take up; workflows; safety alerts; medicine and long-term condition recalls; pathology results; patient deaths; hospital admissions; and non- clinical requests.
• The practice had identified a trend to move secondary care services into the community and as a result had extended the property to provide a surgical unit and subsequent twice weekly macular surgical service. The service was managed by the practice and had resulted in reduced hospital staffing, expenditure, operating costs and increased clinical capacity for the hospital.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP
Chief Inspector of General Practice

Please refer to the detailed report and the evidence tables for further information.

Updated 22 March 2019

Updated 22 March 2019

Updated 22 March 2019

Updated 22 March 2019

Updated 22 March 2019

Updated 22 March 2019