Hockley Farm Medical Practice

Updated 16 October 2023

Hockley Farm Medical Practice is located at:

Braunstone Health & Social Care Centre

39 Hockley Farm

Leicester

Leicestershire

LE3 1HN

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 family planning.

The practice is situated within the Leicester and Leicestershire Integrated Care Board (ICB) and delivers General Medical Services (GMS). This is part of a contract held with NHS England.

The practice is part of a wider network of GP practices called Leicester Health Focus which is a Primary Care Network (PCN) made up of four practices.

Information published by Office for Health Improvement and Disparities shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the lowest decile (one 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 82.3% White, 7.7% Black, 5.4% Asian and 4% mixed and other.

The age distribution of the practice population closely mirrors the local and national averages. The population of the practice is an equal split of males and females.

There is a team of 7 GPs who provide sessions at the practice. The practice has a team of three nurses who provide nurse led clinics for long-term conditions, three healthcare assistants and a team of three pharmacists to support with medications. The GPs are supported at the practice by a team of reception and administration staff which was overseen by a practice manager and an assistant practice manager. The practice also had a care coordinator to assist patients with non-medical supported.

The practice is open between 8am to 6.30pm Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday and 8am to 1pm on Thursdays. The practice offers a range of appointment types including book on the day, telephone consultations and advance appointments.

Extended access appointments were available for practice patients via the PCN on weekday evenings until 8pm and on Saturdays via telephone from 9am to 5pm.

Out of hours services can be accessed via calling NHS 111 where services are provided by DHU healthcare.

Updated 16 October 2023

We carried out an announced comprehensive at Hockley Farm Medical Practice on 5th September 2023. Overall, the practice is rated as good.

Safe – Good.

Effective - Good.

Caring - Good.

Responsive – Requires Improvement.

Well-led - Good.

Following our previous inspection on 15 December 2015, 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 Hockley Farm 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 due to length of time since our previous inspection. We inspected all 5 key questions as part of this inspection.

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 staff interviews 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.
• Requesting evidence from the provider.
• A short site 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.
• The practice had effective systems in place to recall patients for reviews they required. The practice reported difficulties engaging with patients for reviews but had put in place a dedicated phone line for patients to use to book in to avoid queues on the telephone to make these appointments easy to book.
• The practice conducted reviews of their population to understand the needs and highlight areas the practice could improve.
• 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.
• Patients could not always access care and treatment in a timely way. The appointment system was regularly reviewed, with changes being made to clinical staff rotas to optimise work. However, patient satisfaction continued to be lower than averages in relation to obtaining appointments.
• Continuous improvement was seen throughout many areas of the practice where management would conduct regular audits and reviews to improve outcomes for patients.
• The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centre care.

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

• Take action to ensure staff are trained to the relevant safeguarding level for their role.
• Take steps to ensure complaints are organised and responses to complaints are clearly recorded in line with the practice policy.
• Continue to engage with patients requiring monitoring of medicines
• Take action to improve childhood immunisations to target uptake rate.

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