• Doctor
  • GP practice

NPC North Tyneside – Spring Terrace

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

Spring Terrace, North Shields, Tyne and Wear, NE29 0HQ (0191) 296 1588

Provided and run by:
Northumbria Primary Care Limited

All Inspections

During an assessment under our new approach

Date of Assessment: 06 July to 09 July 2026. NPC North Tyneside - Spring Terrace, is a GP practice and delivers service to approximately 21,400 under a contract held with NHS England. The practice operates across 4 sites: Spring Terrace Health Centre, Nelson Medical Group, Park Parade and 49 Marine Avenue. These sites were previously registered as separate GP practices and now operate as a single multi-site service within Northumbria Primary Care. The National General Practice Profiles states that the ethnic make-up of the practice area is 94.5% White, 1.5% Mixed, 2.7% Asian, 0.6% Other and 0.7% Black. Information published by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the 6th decile (6 of 10). The lower the decile, the more deprived the practice population is relative to others. This assessment considered the demographics of the people using the service, the context the service was working within and how this impacted service delivery. Where relevant, further commentary is provided in the quality statements section of this report.

This was a comprehensive assessment undertaken following changes to the provider’s registration arrangements and to review areas of potential risk.

The provider fostered a positive learning culture, with staff confident to raise concerns and incidents investigated thoroughly. People were kept safe, and staff understood and managed risks effectively. Facilities were clean and generally met people's needs. However, we identified some opportunities to strengthen training compliance, competency oversight and medicines monitoring.

People received care and treatment based on current evidence and good practice. Staff worked collaboratively with other professionals to support positive outcomes and coordinated care effectively. People were involved in decisions about their care and treatment, and appropriate processes were followed when people lacked capacity to make decisions for themselves.

People were treated with kindness and compassion. Staff protected their privacy and dignity. They treated them as individuals and supported their preferences. People had choice in their care and treatment. The provider supported staff wellbeing.

People were involved in decisions about their care and treatment and received information in ways they could understand. The practice actively sought feedback and used this to help improve services. People received equitable care, and the practice worked to reduce health inequalities and improve outcomes for underserved communities through targeted engagement and population health initiatives.

Leaders and staff shared a culture based on listening, learning and trust. Staff felt supported, valued and able to raise concerns. Leaders worked collaboratively with patients, communities and partners to improve services and respond to local need. There was a strong focus on continuous learning, improvement and innovation, supported by quality improvement activity, workforce development and research. Governance arrangements were generally effective, although some areas of oversight required strengthening, including medicines management processes, mandatory training, safeguarding competencies and the formal documentation of competency reviews for non-medical prescribers.

 

1, 3 and 15 August 2022

During an inspection looking at part of the service

We carried out a short notice announced inspection at Spring Terrace Health Centre on 1, 3 and 15 August 2022. Overall, the practice is rated as Good.

The key question ratings were:

Safe - Good

Effective - Good

Well-led - Good

Following our previous inspection on 13 July 2017, 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 Spring Terrace Health Centre on our website at www.cqc.org.uk

Why we carried out this inspection

This was a focused inspection to respond to risk and follow up on concerns that were raised with us. These concerns related to the ancillary service provided by Northumberland Primary Care Limited (the provider of Spring Terrace Health Centre) to a number of GP practices locally. The ancillary service was provided by pharmacy hub teams co-located within GP practices, including Spring Terrace Health Centre.

We inspected three key questions - Is the practice safe, effective and well led as part of our methodology to carry out more focused inspections for those practices rated as good overall. All other ratings were carried forward from the July 2017 inspection.

The focus of this inspection was to:

  • Review and respond to the concerns highlighted to the Care Quality Commission.
  • Review the quality and safety of care provided.
  • Review the areas we said the GP practice should address, identified in the previous inspection of July 2017.

How we carried out the inspection

Throughout the pandemic CQC has continued to regulate and respond to risk. However, taking into account the circumstances arising as a result of the pandemic, and in order to reduce risk, we have conducted our inspections differently.

This inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to spend a minimum amount of time on site. This was with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements.

This included:

  • Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing
  • Completing clinical searches on the practice’s patient records system and discussing findings with the provider
  • Reviewing patient records to identify issues and clarify actions taken by the provider
  • Requesting evidence from the provider
  • A site visit
  • Reviewing concerns that were highlighted to us.

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 have rated this practice as Good overall

We found that:

  • The practice provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm.
  • Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs.
  • The practice adjusted how it delivered services to meet the needs of patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.
  • The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centre care.

At the last CQC inspection in July 2017, we said the practice should take action to reduce exception reporting for those clinical indicators where their performance on Quality and Outcomes framework areas (QOF) was below the England average. Since the last CQC inspection, we have changed the way we regulate GP practices. We no longer routinely use QOF to check on the clinical performance of the practice. The practice showed us the governance processes in place to check on progress with clinical indicators and benchmark themselves with other practices locally.

We also said they should continue to take steps to improve patient telephone access and appointment availability. We spoke with the practice about the steps they have taken to improve access within the practice. They told us they had implemented a quality improvement plan in this area. This had included analysing data from the telephone system to target areas for improvement, such as peak times for inbound calls and deploying additional staff at these times to answer calls. Across the local primary care network (PCN) there was a plan to recruit a specialist in children’s mental health to improve support for these patients.

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

  • Continue with the relaunch of the Year of Care approach for people with long term conditions and the risk stratified plan to identify and follow up on the small percentage of patients who have not had appropriate monitoring carried out.
  • Improve the process for monitoring patients who are living with asthma to identify and address those who have high use of first step rescue medicines, which might indicate either misuse or an exacerbation of their asthma.
  • Continue to identify and follow up female patients of childbearing age on teratogenic medicines who have not yet had discussions about the risks or do not have appropriate effective contraception arrangements in place.
  • Continue to identify and implement improvements to support increased cervical screening uptake.
  • Enhance the support for workers to speak up when they feel they are unable to do so by other routes, by appointing a Freedom to Speak Up Guardian.

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 Hospitals and Interim Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services

13 July 2017

During a routine inspection

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Spring Terrace Health Centre on 13 July 2017. Overall, the practice is rated as good.

Our key findings across all the areas we inspected were as follows:

  • There was an open and transparent approach to safety and an effective system for reporting and recording significant events.

  • Risks to patients and staff were assessed and well managed.

  • Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance. They had the skills, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care and treatment.

  • The provider was taking action to improve access, following feedback from some patients that they experienced difficulties getting through to the practice by telephone and obtaining an appointment.

  • All staff were actively engaged in monitoring and improving quality and patient outcomes. They were highly committed to supporting patients to live healthier lives through a targeted and proactive approach to health promotion.

  • Services were tailored to meet the needs of individual people and were delivered in a way that provided flexibility, choice and continuity of care.

  • Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect.
  • Information about how to complain was available and easy to understand.

  • The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.

  • There was a clear leadership structure and staff felt well supported by the management team. Effective governance arrangements were in place, which focussed on delivering good quality care.

  • There was a clear vision and strategy for the development of the practice and staff were committed to providing their patients with good quality care and treatment.

However, there were also areas where the provider should make improvements. The provider should:

  • Where appropriate, take action to reduce exception reporting rates for those clinical indicators where their QOF performance was below the England average.

  • Continue to take steps to improve patient telephone access, and appointment availability.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice