Birkby Health Centre

Updated 2 May 2018

Birkby Health Centre, 37 Norwood Road, Birkby, Huddersfield, HD2 2YD provides services for 3,509 patients. The surgery is situated within the NHS Greater Huddersfield Clinical Commissioning Group and provides primary medical services under the terms of a personal medical services (PMS) contract.

Birkby Health Centre occupies purpose built premises with accessible facilities. These include purpose built treatment and minor surgery rooms, consulting rooms and an interview room. The medical centre also has onsite car parking facilities with a designated disabled parking space.

The practice is in a relatively disadvantaged area with high levels of deprivation. The community is predominantly of South Asian ethnicity, followed by White British and a small number of Black Afro-Caribbean British.

Information published by Public Health England rates the level of deprivation within the practice population group as two, on a scale of one to ten. Level one represents the highest levels of deprivation and level ten the lowest. Male life expectancy is 76 years compared to the national average of 79 years. Female life expectancy is 81 years compared to the national average of 83 years.

Dr Sobia Khaliq is registered as a sole provider. Dr Khaliq (12 sessions) is supported by two regular, part-time locum GPs; one male (3 sessions) and one female (6 sessions) and a pharmacist who works 20 hours a week. The practice manager supervises a secretary and several receptionists who support the administrative running of the practice.

The practice is open Monday to Friday from 8am until 6:30pm. Appointments are available in morning and afternoon sessions throughout the week from 9am until 6pm. The practice is closed on a Wednesday afternoon and cover is provided by a local practice. 

Out of hours treatment is provided by Local Care Direct, which can be accessed by calling the surgery telephone number or contacting the NHS111 service.

When we returned for this inspection, we checked and saw that the previously awarded ratings were displayed as required in the premises and on the practice’s website.

Updated 2 May 2018

This practice is rated as Good overall. The previous inspection was on 8 April 2016 when the practice was 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 Birkby Health Centre, 37 Norwood Road, Birkby, Huddersfield, HD2 2YD on 21 March 2018 as part of our inspection programme.

At this inspection we found:

• 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. When things went wrong, reviews and investigations were thorough and lessons learned were communicated throughout the practice to support improvement.
• 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.
• We saw that staff treated patients with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
• Patients found the appointment system easy to use and told us that they were able to access care when they needed it.
• There was a focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels of the organisation.
• The practice had shown a reduction in antibiotic prescribing.
• The practice gave us examples of when they had ‘gone the extra mile’ for patients by, for example, the GPs telephoned the patients at weekends to monitor their health and reassure patients of treatment received.
• The practice developed a Vitamin D health leaflet which the CCG (Clinical Commissioning Group) was using district wide.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

Updated 2 May 2018

Updated 2 May 2018

Updated 2 May 2018

Updated 2 May 2018

Updated 2 May 2018

Updated 2 May 2018