• Doctor
  • GP practice

Parcliffe Medical Centre

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

Durham Avenue, Lytham St. Annes, FY8 2EP (01253) 955688

Provided and run by:
Parcliffe Medical Centre

Important: The provider of this service changed. See old profile

Latest inspection summary

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Background to this inspection

Updated 30 September 2022

Parcliffe Medical Centre is located in Lytham St Annes at:

St Annes Health Centre

Durham Avenue

Lytham St Annes

FY8 2EP

The practice is situated in a modern purpose-built health centre. The building is accessible for people who use wheelchairs and services for patients are located on the ground floor. There are two reception points, a health promotion area, patient information boards, a large seating area, toilet facilities (which provide access for disabled people), a hearing loop system, digital display screens (providing public health information) and electronic check in screens located in the reception area. There is also an on-site pharmacy located next to the patient seating area.

There are two wings within the building which are dedicated to Parcliffe Medical Practice. Each ground floor wing has 10 consulting rooms and two treatment rooms. One wing is used mainly by the nursing team and the other wing by GPs and medical students. The upstairs offices are used by the clinical pharmacist, the business manager, operational manager and other administration and support staff.

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

The practice is situated within the Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB) and delivers General Medical Services (GMS) to a patient population of about 11,854. This is part of a contract held with NHS England.

The practice is part of a wider network of six GP practices called a primary care network (PCN) in the Lytham St Annes area. The nearest practice to Parcliffe Medical Centre is Poplar House Surgery which is co-located in the same health centre.

Information published by Public Health England shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the fifth lowest decile (5 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 1.2% Asian, 97.4% White, 1% Mixed, and 0.3% Other. The age distribution of the practice population did not mirror the local and national averages. There are more older patients (29.6% compared with 17.4% nationally and 27.1% locally) registered at the practice than younger ones (16.3% compared with 20.2% nationally and 17.2% locally.

There is a team of eight GPs who provide cover at the practice. This number includes five GP partners, two salaried GPs and a regular locum GP. The practice also employs two advanced nurse practitioners (one of whom acts as the clinical lead), five practice nurses, a phlebotomist, a health care assistant, a clinical pharmacist and a physician’s associate. The practice team also benefit from other roles that are funded by the primary care network. For example, a first contact physio, a psychological wellbeing practitioner, two social prescribers and two clinical pharmacists (one of which acts as a lead).

The GPs are supported at the practice by a practice management team and reception /administration staff. This includes a business manager, a practice operational manager, a prescription clerk, three medical secretaries, five medical receptionists, nine patient advisors, two work flow administrators and three other staff who undertake dual roles.

Due to the enhanced infection prevention and control measures put in place since the pandemic and in line with the national guidance, most GP appointments were telephone consultations. If the GP needs to see a patient face-to-face then the patient is offered a choice of appointment time.

The practice is open from 8am to 6.30pm Monday to Friday. Extended access appointments are provided outside of normal GP practice hours by the Fylde Coast Integrated Urgent Care Service, where late evening and weekend appointments are available. The service offers pre-bookable and same-day routine primary care appointments with a range of clinicians including GPs, nurses and health care assistants.

The out of hours service is provided by Fylde Coast Medical Service.

The practice offers training and support to year one, two and /or three physicians associates from the University of Central Lancashire, year four medical students from Liverpool University and foundation year two placements. The practice also provides training and support for GP trainees (Registrars) and nursing student placements.

Overall inspection

Good

Updated 30 September 2022

We previously carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Parcliffe Medical Centre on 06 April 2022 as part of our inspection programme. We rated the practice as requires improvement for providing safe services and good overall.

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

At our inspection in April 2022, we rated the practice as requires improvement for providing safe services because:

  • The practice did not have safe and effective systems and processes to recruit staff.

Why we carried out this review

We carried out a focused desk-based review of Parcliffe Medical Centre on 21 September 2022. This review was undertaken to determine whether the breach of Regulation 19 (Fit and Proper Persons Employed) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 identified at our last inspection had been addressed.

For this review, we focused on the key question of Safe which we rated as requires improvement in April 2022.

How we carried out the review

Throughout the pandemic CQC has continued to regulate and respond to risk. However, taking into account the circumstances arising as a result of the pandemic, and in order to reduce risk, we have conducted our reviews differently.

This review was carried out remotely with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements.

This included:

  • Requesting evidence from the provider
  • Further communications for clarification

Our findings

At this inspection we found the provider had satisfactorily addressed the legal requirement and some suggestions for improvements.

We have rated this practice as Good for providing safe services.

We found that:

  • Recruitment procedures had been established to ensure only fit and proper persons were employed. This provided assurance that staff employed at the practice had been recruited in a safe way. We also reviewed the recruitment files for a number of staff who had commenced employment at the practice since our last inspection, and found all relevant pre-employment checks had been completed as required by the regulations.

The provider also informed us that that improvements had been made to:

  • The reviewing and coding of diabetic patients to ensure the management of patients on high-risk drugs is completed in accordance with recommended best practice guidelines;
  • Supporting staff to complete outstanding training including basic life support and sepsis training.

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 Hospitals and Interim Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services