Background to this inspection
Updated
17 March 2020
Gateacre Medical Centre is situated in a deprived area of Liverpool. There were 2,410 patients on the practice list at the time of our inspection.
Gateacre Medical Centre is registered with the Care Quality Commission to carry out the following regulated activities: diagnostic and screening procedures, family planning, maternity and midwifery services, surgical procedures and treatment of disease, disorder or injury.
The practice is part of NHS Liverpool Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and has a General Medical Services (GMS) contract.
The practice is managed by an individual GP. The practice uses a regular GP locum. There is one practice nurse. Members of clinical staff are supported by the practice manager, reception and administration staff.
The practice is open 8am to 6.30pm every weekday and offers extended opening hours on a Tuesday evening from 6.30pm-7.15pm. Patients requiring a GP outside of normal working hours are advised to contact the GP out of hours service by calling 111.
Updated
17 March 2020
We previously carried out a comprehensive inspection of Gateacre Medical Centre on 8 February 2019. We rated the practice Good overall but Requires Improvement for providing safe services because there was a breach of regulations. The breach was:
Regulation 12: Safe care and treatment. The practice had some emergency medicines but not all that was recommended. There was no risk assessment to outline how the practice would manage certain medical emergencies without these medicines. Antibiotic prescribing rates were monitored by the CCG but there was no evidence to demonstrate how the practice managed their antibiotic prescribing rates or high prescribing rates for hypnotic medicines. Blank prescriptions for printers were securely stored but the dispersal and subsequent storage of the blank prescriptions throughout the practice was not monitored. Patient Group Directions for the authorisation of vaccines were signed but in the wrong place for the proper legal authorisation. The system in place to ensure that equipment used by staff had been appropriately calibrated required improvement as this did not include staff’s personal equipment, some of which did not have up to date calibration checks.
We also recommended that the practice should:
- Update safeguarding policies in line with national guidance.
- Monitor the ongoing immunisation status for all staff.
At this desk based follow up inspection 2 March 2020, we found that the provider had satisfactorily addressed most of these areas and therefore the practice is now rated as good for providing safe services.
We based our judgement of the quality of care at this service on a combination of:
• information from our ongoing monitoring of data about services and
• information from the provider, patients, the public and other organisations.
Although there were no breaches of regulation, the provider should:
- Have their own safeguarding policy.
Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.
Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP
Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care
People experiencing poor mental health (including people with dementia)
Updated
6 March 2019