Blackfriars Medical Practice

Updated 7 February 2024

Blackfriars Medical Practice is located in Salford at:

Fresh Towers,

138 Chapel Street,

Salford,

Manchester,

Greater Manchester,

M3 6AF

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.

The practice is situated within the Greater Manchester Integrated Care System (ICS) and delivers General Medical Services (GMS) to a patient population of about 14,890. This is part of a contract held with NHS England.

The practice is part of a wider network of GP practices Broughton primary care network (PCN).

Information published by Office for Health Improvement and Disparities shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the fourth lowest decile (four 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 69.2% White, 12.2% Asian, 8.3% Black, 4.8% Mixed, and 5.5% Other.

The age distribution of the practice population has a much higher than average number of working age patients (91.6% of the patient list) than other practices locally (67.1%) and nationally (62.4%). Since 2021 the practice had gained an additional 3000+ patients. This took the patient list size from approximately 11,500 to 14,890.

There is a team of five GPs who provide cover at the practice. The practice has a team of two advanced care practitioners, two practice nurses, four physician associates, a practice pharmacist and two healthcare assistants. The GPs are supported at the practice by a team of reception and administration staff. The practice manager, assistant practice manager and business partner are based at the main location to provide managerial oversight.

The practice is open between 8:00am 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 primary care network, where late evening and weekend appointments are available. Out of hours services are provided by NHS111.

Updated 7 February 2024

We carried out an announced assessment of Blackfriars Medical Practice on 9 January 2024. The assessment focused on the responsive key question.

Following our previous inspection on 11 January 2019 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 Blackfriars Medical Practice on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

The practice continues to be rated as good overall as this was the rating given at the last comprehensive inspection. However, we have now rated the responsive key question as requires improvement as a result of the findings of this focused assessment.

Safe – not inspected

Effective - not inspected

Caring - not inspected

Responsive - requires improvement

Well-led - not inspected

Why we carried out this review

We carried out this assessment as part of our work to understand how practices are working to try to meet demand for access and to better understand the experiences of people who use services and providers.

We recognise the work that GP practices have been engaged in to continue to provide safe, quality care to the people they serve. We know colleagues are doing this while demand for general practice remains exceptionally high, with more appointments being provided than ever. In this challenging context, access to general practice remains a concern for people. Our strategy makes a commitment to deliver regulation driven by people’s needs and experiences of care. These assessments of the responsive key question include looking at what practices are doing innovatively to improve patient access to primary care and sharing this information to drive improvement.

How we carried out the review

This assessment was carried our remotely. It did not include a site visit.

The process included:

• Conducting an interview with the provider and members of staff using video conferencing.
• Reviewing patient feedback from a range of sources
• Requesting evidence from the provider.
• Reviewing data we hold about the service
• Seeking information/feedback from relevant stakeholders

Our findings

We based our judgement of the responsive key question on a combination of:

• what we found when we met with the provider
• information from our ongoing monitoring of data about services and
• information from the provider, patients, the public and other organisations.

We found that:

• During the assessment process, the provider highlighted improvements they had made to improve the responsiveness of the service for their patient population. The impact of these efforts were not yet reflected in the verified patient survey data. Patients could not always access care and treatment in a timely way.

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

• Continue to do internal patient surveys to evidence the impact of changes to the service on patient access.
• Give patients information on what they can do if they are not satisfied with the practice response to their complaint within the complaint response, this should include details of an independent body.

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