Background to this inspection
Updated
11 April 2019
OHP-Lordswood House Medical Practice is part of the provider at scale organisation Our Health Partnership (OHP). OHP currently consists of 189 partners across 37 practices providing care and treatment to approximately 359,000 patients. The provider has a centralised team to provide support to member practices in terms of quality, finance, workforce, business planning, contracts and general management, whilst retaining autonomy for service delivery at individual practices. OHP also provides a mechanism by which practices can develop ideas to support the sustainability of primary medical services and provide a collective voice to influence change in the delivery of services locally and nationally.
The provider is registered with CQC to deliver the Regulated Activities; diagnostic and screening procedures, family planning, maternity and midwifery services, surgical procedures and treatment of disease, disorder or injury.
The provider added OHP-Lordswood House Medical Practice as a location to their registration registered in July 2017. There are three locations that form Lordswood House Medical Practice; the main site located at 54 Lordwood House and two branch sites Quinton family practice and Quinborne medical practice. The practice has good transport links and there is a pharmacy located next to the main site as well as one of the branch sites. We visited all sites as part of this inspection.
Lordswood House Group Medical Practice is situated within the Birmingham and Solihull Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and provides services to 25,023 patients under the terms of a general medical services (GMS) contract. This is a contract between general practices and NHS England for delivering services to the local community.
Practice staffing comprises of 15 GP partners (eight males and seven female) and eight female salaried GPs. The clinical team also includes a nurse team leader, eight practice nurses (seven female and one male), three health care assistants, a pharmacist and two phlebotomists. The non-clinical team consists of a business manager, a finance manager, four deputy managers, a reception manager and a team of receptionists, administrators and medical secretaries.
OHP operates seven extended access hubs across the city that provide services to patients outside of normal GP hours. Lordswood House Medical Practice is one of them. Extended access appointments are available to patients from 6.30pm until 8pm Mondays to Fridays; 9am to 1pm Saturdays and 10am to 2pm Sundays.
When the practice is closed, out of hours cover for emergencies is provided by Birmingham and District General Practitioner Emergency Rooms (BADGER) medical services.
The National General Practice Profile states that the practice population ethnicity estimate is 70% White, 5% mixed race, 16% Asian, 7% Black and 2% other non-white ethnic groups. Information published by Public Health England, rates the level of deprivation within the practice population group as four, on a scale of one to ten. Level one represents the highest levels of deprivation and level ten the lowest. Male life expectancy is 81 years compared to the national average of 79 years. Female life expectancy is 81 years compared to the national average of 83 years.
Updated
11 April 2019
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at OHP-Lordwood House Medical Practice on 11 February 2019 as part of our inspection programme.
We based our judgement of the quality of care at this service is 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. They had taken action to further improve and strengthen safeguarding arrangements within the practice.
- The practice proactively used learning from incidents to develop staff to meet patients needs. For example, transgender prescribing and domestic violence training.
- Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs.
- Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
- Feedback from patients was positive and survey results showed satisfaction was mainly higher than local and national averages in a number of areas. Staff were aware of areas for further improvement and actively addressing them.
- The practice organised and delivered services to meet patients’ needs. Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way. They were delivered in a flexible way that ensured choice and continuity of care,
We rated the practice as outstanding for providing well-led services because:
- The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centre care. There were innovative approaches to providing integrated person-centred care. Leaders demonstrated proactive engagement with stakeholders as well as the ability to drive an evolving governance structure.
- The practice was involved in a range of pilot schemes; they identified areas where there were gaps in provision locally and had taken steps to address them.
- The culture of the practice and the way it was led and managed drove the delivery and improvement of high-quality, person-centred care.
We saw one outstanding feature:
- The practice went beyond the requirements of a General Medical Service Contract (GMS). The practice held an in-house dermatology clinic which was set up to reduce waiting times for patients who would normally be referred to secondary care. This service was self-funded by the practice. Clinicians within the medical group also offered Musculoskeletal (MSK), sports and exercise medicine appointments. The practice produced evidence that showed the patients were pre-booked four to five weeks in advance demonstrating a shorter waiting time than secondary care outpatient appointments.
Whilst we found no breaches of regulations, the provider should:
- Continue taking action to improve the uptake of childhood immunisations and national screening programmes such as cervical screening.
- Continue taking action to ensure induction processes were completed in line with the practice policies and procedures.
- Improve the identification of carers to enable this group of patients to access the care and support they need.
- Continue looking at ways and taking action to improve exception reporting rates.
Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.
Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP
Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care