Thamesmead Health Centre

Updated 5 June 2018

The registered provider of the service is Thamesmead Health Centre. The practice is registered with the Care Quality Commission to provide the regulated activities of Treatment of disease, disorder or injury; Maternity and midwifery services; Diagnostic and screening procedures; Family planning services and Surgical procedures.

The address of the registered provider is Thamesmead Health Centre, 4-5 Thames Reach, London, SE28 0NY. https://www.thamesmeadhealthcentre.co.uk/.

Thamesmead Health Centre provides primary medical services in Thamesmead to 7,866 patients and is one of 37 practices in Greenwich Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). The practice is part of the organisation AT Medics, which was established in 2004. AT Medics is led by six GP directors and spreads across 37 locations within London. Thamesmead Health Centre has a population deprivation score of four in England (one being the most deprived and 10 being the least). The proportion of children registered at the practice who live in income deprived households is 27% which is higher than the CCG average of 25%.

The practice population of children is higher than the CCG and national average. However, for older people the practice population is significantly below the CCG and national average. The practice population of those of working age are above the CCG and national averages. Of patients registered with the practice, 43% are White or White British, 11% are Asian or Asian British, 39% are Black or Black British, 6% are mixed British and 2% are other ethnic groups.

The practice operates from the first floor of a large purpose-built health centre. Facilities are on the ground floor and are wheelchair accessible. The practice has access to five doctor consultation rooms and two nurse treatment rooms. The practice team at the surgery is made up of three male GPs, two of them are salaried GPs the other is a partner of AT Medics. A part-time female practice pharmacist, a part-time female practice nurse, two part-time female health care assistants/administrators, one part-time female locum nurse practitioner, four part-time receptionists one of whom also works as a referral coordinator, an administrative lead, a practice administrator and a practice manager. The practice also had a Regional Manager worked from the practice once a week.

The practice hosts Live Well Greenwich and is attended on Tuesdays by a health professional, who provides guidance to patients on how to live a healthy lifestyle. Greenwich GP Hub operates from the practice, Monday to Friday 4pm to 8pm, Saturdays and Sundays 8am to 8pm and Bank Holidays 8am to 8pm. Patients can be booked directly into this service.

Updated 5 June 2018

This practice is rated as good overall.

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? - good

Are services effective? - good

Are services caring? - good

Are services responsive? - good

Are services well-led? - good

As part of our inspection process, we also look at the quality of care for specific population groups.

The population groups are rated as:

Older People - good

People with long-term conditions – good

Families, children and young people – good

Working age people (including those recently retired and students – good

People whose circumstances may make them vulnerable – good

People experiencing poor mental health (including people with dementia) - good

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Thamesmead Health Centre on 21 March 2018 under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was carried out inline with our next phase inspection programme.

At this inspection we found:

• The practice had a vision to deliver high quality care for patients.

• The service had systems and processes in place to ensure that patients were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in decisions about their care and treatment.

• The practice had clear systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. When incidents did happen, the practice learned from them and improved their processes.

• The practice routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided. It ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence- based guidelines.

• Staff involved and treated patients with compassion,kindness, dignity and respect.

• Patients found the appointment system easy to use and reported that they were able to access care when they needed it. The practice offered a flexible range of appointments and services.

• There was a strong focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels of the organisation.

• There were systems in place to ensure that patients with long-term conditions or who were vulnerable received the treatment and health checks they needed.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Make all appropriate staff aware of the process for recording, resetting and logging fridge temperatures.

• Take steps to increase the annual review rate of patients identified as having a learning disability and review the need to put processes in place to ensure GPs have appropriate involvement in the annual reviews of people with learning disabilities undertaken by the healthcare assistant and pharmacist.

• The practice should formalise the structure of supervision for all employed clinical staff.

• Review the processes in place for cervical screening to increase uptake.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice