Archived: Kensington Park Surgery

Updated 21 January 2016

Kensington Park Surgery is part of the corporate provider SSP Health Limited. This practice is registered with CQC to provide primary care services. The practice is situated within the Kensington ward area of the city of Liverpool. This area has higher than average deprivation scores for income, employment, healthcare and deprivation affecting children and older people.

The practice is an Alternative Provider of medical Services (APMS) with a registered list size of 4060 patients. The practice population is predominantly younger than 40 years and the area has high levels of deprivation and unemployment. The practice has a regular principle GP working across four days, Locum GPs, a nurse clinician, practice nurse, a practice manager and a number of administration and reception staff.

The practice is open between 8am and 6.30pm Monday to Friday and offers extended opening up until 8.30pm one day per week. Appointments can be booked for up to four weeks in advance for both GPs and nursing clinics. The practice treats patients of all ages and provides a range of medical services. The practice does not deliver out-of-hours services these are delivered by the NHS 111 service.

Updated 21 January 2016

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an inspection at Kensington Park Surgery in October 2014 and found breaches of regulations relating to the safe, effective, well – led and responsive delivery of patient services. The overall rating of the practice in October 2014 was inadequate and the practice was placed into special measures for six months. Following the October 2014 inspection, the practice wrote to us to say what they would do to meet legal requirements in relation to safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led services.

We carried out a further announced comprehensive inspection at the practice on 29 October 2015. This inspection was carried out to consider whether sufficient improvements had been made and to identify if the provider was now meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008. At the inspection in October 2015, we found the practice had made significant improvements and they were now meeting all of the regulations which had previously been breached. The ratings for the practice have been updated to reflect our findings. Specifically, we found the practice had improved systems in place for providing safe, well-led, effective, caring and responsive services. I am taking this service out of special measures. This recognises the significant improvements that have been made to the quality of care provided by this service.

The practice is rated as good overall, for providing safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led services.

Our key findings across all the areas we inspected were as follows:

• There was an open and transparent approach to safety and an effective system in place for reporting and recording significant events.
• Risks to patients were assessed managed.
• Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance. Staff had the skills, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care and treatment.
• 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.
• Patients said they found it easy to make an appointment however the use of locum GPs provided challenges with regard to continuity of care, with urgent appointments available the same day.
• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
• There was a clear leadership structure and staff felt supported by management. The practice proactively sought feedback from staff and patients, which it acted on.
• The provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the Duty of Candour.

The areas where the provider should make improvement are :

• Review the system used to monitor safeguarding requests for information and the practice responses to ensure all relevant information was held in patient records. The system should also ensure that all appropriate staff have access to safeguarding information.
• Ensure that recruitment records for those staff not directly employed by the provider such as self-employed GPs contain information that demonstrates that they are physically and mentally fit to carry out their roles safely and competently.
• Progress should be made with regard to plans for improving patient participation.

I confirm that this practice has improved sufficiently to be rated Good overall. This practice will be removed from special measures.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

Updated 21 January 2016

The practice is rated good for providing services for people with long term conditions. These patients had a six monthly or annual review with either the GP and/or the nurse to check their health and medication. The practice had registers in place for several long term conditions including diabetes and asthma. The practice had adopted a holistic approach to patient care rather than making separate appointments for each medical condition. The practice offered appointments with the practice nurse for up to 45 minutes to ensure patients with multiple needs were seen.

Updated 21 January 2016

The practice is rated good for providing services for families, children and young people. There were systems in place to identify and follow up children living in disadvantaged circumstances and who were at risk, for example, children and young people who had a high number of A&E attendances. The practice regularly liaised with health visitors. Immunisation rates were high for all standard childhood immunisations. The practice had developed an ‘Access for Children’ policy to ensure that all children under five could be seen on the same day if required.

Updated 21 January 2016

The practice is rated as good for the care of older people. Nationally reported data showed that outcomes for patients were good for conditions commonly found in older people. The practice offered proactive, personalised care to meet the needs of the older people in its population and had a range of enhanced services, for example, in dementia and end of life care. It was responsive to the needs of older people, and offered home visits and rapid access appointments for those with enhanced needs.

Updated 21 January 2016

The practice is rated good for providing services for working age people. The needs of this population group had been identified and the practice had adjusted the services it offered to ensure these were accessible. For example, the practice offered online appointment bookings and a repeat prescription service. The practice also offered telephone consultations to reduce time off work.

Updated 21 January 2016

The practice is rated good for providing services for patients experiencing poor mental health. Patients experiencing poor mental health received an invitation for an annual physical health check. Those few that did not attend had alerts placed on their records so they could be reviewed opportunistically. Mental Capacity Act training was available to all staff and SSP Health Ltd had also disseminated information regarding Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards to all its practices.

Updated 21 January 2016

The practice is rated good for providing services for people whose circumstances make them vulnerable. The practice held a register of patients living in vulnerable circumstances including those with a learning disability but this needed to be updated. Longer appointments were available for people with a learning disability. Staff had received safeguarding training.