Ilex View Medical Practice

Updated 15 January 2024

Ilex View Medical Practice is located on the first floor within Rossendale Primary Health Care Centre, Bacup Road, Rossendale, BB4 7PL. The health centre offers several other health care services including another NHS GP practice, a GP extended access services, and a minor injury unit. Other services included, radiology, physiotherapy, treatment room services, podiatry and a hospice day unit.

The health centre provides passenger elevators, disabled toileting facilities and offers car parking including disabled parking bays.

The lead GP for the service is the registered provider and is registered with CQC to deliver the regulated activities, diagnostic and screening procedures and treatment of disease, disorder or injury and family planning. At the time of our inspection visit the practice was not registered for maternity and midwifery services, however an application for the regulated activity was submitted to the CQC within 48 hours of the visit.

The practice is part of the integrated care board (ICB) for Lancashire and South Cumbria and services are delivered under a General Medical Services (GMS) contract to a patient population of about 9410. The provider is also part of the Rossendale West Primary Care Network (PCN) with five other local GP practices. They have access to the services of a first contact physiotherapist, a mental health practitioner, an Associate Psychological Practitioner (APPS) a Trainee Associate Psychological Practitioner (TAPPS), a clinical pharmacist, a health and wellbeing couch and a social prescriber. In addition, the GP practice have access to a care home nursing team, an acute home visiting team, and the integrated nursing team.

Information published by Public Health England shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in midway at the fifth decile (5 of 10). The lower the decile, the more deprived the practice population is relative to others.

According to available data provided by the practice, the ethnic make-up of the practice area is 49% White, 19% Black and Minority Ethnicity (BAME), and the remainder classed as Other. Public data from 2021 shows the practices younger population aged 18 years and under is higher at 23.4% when compared with the local population of 21.6%. The over 65s patient population is lower at 15% compared with 18.9% within the local geographical area.

The age distribution of the practice population otherwise closely mirrors the local and national averages and the male to female patient ratio is also similar to national averages.

The practice team includes the lead GP (female) and 4 additional salaried GPs (both male and female).They are supported by a clinical team that includes an advanced nurse practitioner, 3 practice nurses a nurse associate and a health care assistant. The management team are led by the practice manager, an assistant practice manager a reception supervisor and a team of reception, administration and secretarial staff.

The practice is open between 8am to 6.30pm 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 East Lancashire Alliance CIC GP federation, where evening appointments are available between 6.30pm and 8.45pm, and on Saturday mornings. Ilex View Medical Practice is one of extended access hub sites which patients living in the locality can access for primary care appointments outside the normal GP opening times. Out of hours services are provided by East Lancs Medical Services (ELMS) via the NHS 111 service.

Updated 15 January 2024

We carried out a comprehensive inspection at Ilex View Medical Practice on 31 October and 7 November 2023. Overall, the practice is rated as Good. We rated key question responsive as requires improvement. The practice was working to improve access, this was not yet reflected in the GP patient survey data.

Safe – Good.

Effective – Good.

Caring – Good.

Responsive – Requires improvement.

Well-led – Good.

This inspection was the first inspection for this registered provider. The last inspection of Ilex View Medical Practice (under the previous registered provider) was in June 2016, where all key questions were rated good.

The inspection reports for this service can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Ilex View Medical Practice 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.

This inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to spend a minimum amount of time on site.

This included:

• Conducting face to face staff interviews and 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.
• Reviewing evidence from the provider,
• Reviewing data available in the public domain.
• A site visit.
• Speaking with patients by telephone after the inspection 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.
• 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.
• The way the practice leadership team worked with their staff promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centre care.
• The practice team recognised the challenges of ensuring patient access to the right clinical care and treatment and was working with the primary care team on a quality improvement initiative to seek ways to improve patient access to timely appropriate care and treatment.
• The practice’s patient participation group (PPG) was re-established in 2022 and the participants were actively involved in devising a patient questionnaire to seek out patient views at the time of this inspection.
• The areas identified during the inspection for improvement were addressed immediately or within 48 hours. This included reviewing and following up patients who were potential outliers for missed monitoring and ensuring the nursing clinical team were appropriately trained to level 3 in safeguarding people.

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

• Continue to implement actions to improve patient access to care and treatment.

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