Aintree Road Medical Centre

Updated 19 March 2018

Aintree Road Medical Centre is located in a deprived area in Bootle, Merseyside. There were 2450 patients on the practice list and the majority of patients were of white British background.

The practice is managed by a limited company S2S Health Limited. There are six GPs. The GPs worked across two practices owned by the provider. GPs worked at this location on fixed days. There is a part time practice nurse, a practice manager, reception and administration staff. The

practice is open 8am to 6.30pm Monday to Friday. Patients accessed the Out-of-Hours GP service by calling NHS 111.

The practice is commissioned by NHS South Sefton local clinical commissioning group and has a Personal Medical Service (PMS) contract.

Updated 19 March 2018

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Aintree Road Medical Centre on 16 October 2017. The overall rating for the practice was good but required improvement for providing safe services. The full comprehensive report for the 16 October 2017 inspection can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Aintree Road Medical Centre on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

This inspection was an announced focused inspection carried out on 26 February 2018 to confirm that the practice had carried out their plan to meet the legal requirements in relation to the breaches in regulations that we identified in our previous inspection on 16 October 2017. This report covers our findings in relation to those requirements and also additional improvements made since our last inspection.

Overall the practice is now rated as good and good for providing safe services.

Our key findings were as follows:

The practice had made improvements and addressed the issues identified in the previous inspection. Improvements included the implementation of:

• A display screen risk assessment for staff to ensure their working environment was safe.
• A disability access risk assessment.
• Regular audits of high risk medications to ensure patients received appropriate checks.

In addition the practice had:

• Installed a television in the waiting room for additional supporting information for patients.
• Updated the clinical protocols available for clinicians for chronic disease management.
• Implemented a new protocol for dealing with uncollected prescriptions to ensure all staff were aware of what to do and that the prescriptions were reviewed by a GP prior to being destroyed.
• Reviewed the current national GP patient survey data and designed surveys to give out to patients later in the year, to see how they could address areas where the practice was performing lower than local and national averages.
• Updated the alert system on patients’ records for safeguarding.
• Implemented plans for all GPs to carry out a minimum of two clinical audits per annum to improve patient outcomes.
• Updated the reporting mechanism for incidents to encourage increased incident reporting and to improve shared learning.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

Updated 15 November 2017

The practice is rated as good for the care of people with long-term conditions.

• There was a system to recall patients for a structured annual review to check their health and medicines needs were being met. .
• For those patients with the most complex needs, the GPs worked with relevant health and care professionals to deliver a multidisciplinary package of care. 

Updated 15 November 2017

The practice is rated as good for the care of families, children and young people.

The practice worked with midwives and health visitors to support this population group. For example, in the provision of ante-natal, post-natal and child health surveillance clinics and provided immunisations. 

Updated 15 November 2017

The practice is rated as good for the care of older people.

• The practice was responsive to the needs of older patients, and offered home visits and urgent appointments for those with enhanced needs.
• The practice identified at an early stage older patients who may need palliative care as they were approaching the end of life. It involved older patients in planning and making decisions about their care, including their end of life care.
• The practice followed up on older patients discharged from hospital and ensured that their care plans were updated to reflect any extra needs.

Updated 15 November 2017

The practice is rated as good for the care of working age people (including those recently retired and students).

The practice was proactive in offering online services as well as a full range of health promotion and screening that reflected the needs for this age group. 

Updated 15 November 2017

The practice is rated as good for the care of people experiencing poor mental health (including people with dementia).

• The practice regularly worked with multi-disciplinary teams in the case management of patients experiencing poor mental health, including those living with dementia.
• The practice was able to signpost patients experiencing poor mental health to access various support groups and voluntary organisations.

Updated 15 November 2017

The practice is rated as good for the care of people whose circumstances may make them vulnerable.

• The practice held a register of patients living in vulnerable circumstances including those with a learning disability.
• The practice offered longer appointments for patients with a learning disability.
• The practice regularly worked with other health care professionals in the case management of vulnerable patients.
• The practice worked with the local alcohol and drug recovery team.