• Doctor
  • Urgent care service or mobile doctor

Compass Medical Practice

City Gate, Gallowgate, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE1 4PA 0300 123 779

Provided and run by:
FCMS (NW) Limited

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

Inspection summaries and ratings from previous provider

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Background to this inspection

Updated 4 December 2018

PDS Medical Planned Care provides primary medical care to patients under a special allocation scheme. These patients have been removed from a GP practice and the service provides on going medical care when required, with the objective of the patients returning to a routine GP practice where ever possible. 

The service is based in Newfield House, Vicarage Lane, Blackpool along with a number of other PDS Care services. The service website is www.pdsmedical.nhs.net

Primary medical services are provided to a patient list of approximately 173 patients under an Alternative Provider Medical Services (APMS) contract with NHS England North (Lancashire and South Cumbria Area Team).  The patient list has increased since the last inspection from 145 patients.

The geographic area this service covers is Lancashire, Blackburn with Darwen, Blackpool, Chorley & South Ribble, South Cumbria and Halton. Patients are seen at clinical premises rented by PDS Medical Planned Care within ten miles of their home.

The service delivers the following regulated activities: -

• Diagnostic and screening procedures

• Treatment of disease, disorder or injury

The service is staffed by three sessional GPs (one male and two female).

Other clinical staff consist of a Medical Director, a Director of Nursing and Quality and one health care assistant. Clinical staff are supported by a Practice Manager, a Head of Planned Care, a risk manager and a team of finance, human resource, reception and administration staff.

The service is open between 8am and 6.30pm Monday to Friday, with telephone triage available throughout the day and face to face appointments 10am-5pm. Outside normal surgery hours, patients are advised to contact their local out of hours’ service by dialling NHS 111.

The inspection was a visit to the office base.

Overall inspection

Good

Updated 4 December 2018

This practice is rated as good overall. (previous inspection 22 May 2018  rated Good overall, requires improvement for safe domain)

The key question reviewed is rated as:

Are services safe? – Good

We carried out an announced inspection at PDS Medical Planned Care  on 22 May 2018 as part of our inspection programme. At this inspection the service was rated as Good overall, with the safe domain rated as requires improvement. This was due to the lack of readily available  emergency equipment, whilst undertaking clinical sessions and inconsistency in guidance available for staff in relation to the management of sepsis. Also patient medication reviews were not consistently undertaken.

We undertook a follow up inspection on 9 November 2018 to ascertain if improvements had been made.

At this inspection we found:

  • The provision of equipment for clinical sessions had been reviewed
  • Emergency equipment now included a defibrillator, oxygen and face masks
  • Guidance had been reviewed and implemented for the management of sepsis
  • The system for undertaking patient medication reviews had been reviewed and improved.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP

Chief Inspector of General Practice