Background to this inspection
Updated
21 September 2020
Mallard Medical Practice provides care and treatment to around 5,000 patients in the town of Killingworth, Newcastle upon Tyne. The practice is part of North Tyneside clinical commissioning group (CCG) and operates on a General Medical Services (GMS) contract agreement for general practice. The practice provides services from the following address,
Killingworth Health Centre, Citadel East, Killingworth, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE126HS. The practice is located in a purpose-built, single-storey building. There is a car park, an accessible WC, and wheelchair and step-free access.
The service for patients requiring urgent medical attention out of hours is provided by the NHS 111 service and Vocare (known locally as Northern Doctors Urgent Care). The practice has:
• three GP partners (two female and one male);
• two salaried GPs (one female and one male);
• two practice nurses (both female);
• two healthcare assistants;
• two practice managers, and six staff who carryout reception and administrative duties.
The age profile of the practice population is broadly in line with the local averages. Information taken from Public Health England placed the area in which the practice is located in the fifth less deprived decile. In general, people living in more deprived areas tend to have greater need for health services.
Updated
21 September 2020
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Mallard Medical Practice on 8 November 2019. The overall rating for the practice was good, but it was rated as requires improvement for the safe domain. The full comprehensive report on the November 2019 inspection can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Mallard Medical practice on our website at .
This inspection was a desk-based review carried out on 6th to 12th August 2020 to confirm that the practice had made the improvements. This report covers our findings in relation to those requirements.
The practice remains rated as Good overall and has improved its rating of Requires Improvement for the safe domain to Good.
Our key findings were as follows:
At the inspection in November 2019 we rated the practice as requires improvement for providing safe services because:
- We were not assured that patients had been individually assessed to ensure it was medically appropriate for them to receive vaccines under a Patient Specific Direction (PSD).
- There was no system in place to ensure that patient safety alerts had been read and actioned.
- Systems which kept patients safe required improvement, such as the system for checking emergency medicines.
At this review we found that the practice had made the necessary improvements as follows:
- We were supplied with evidence of a template now used by the practice on individual patients to assess and authorise whether the medicine was safe to administer by Patient Specific Direction.
- Safety alerts were now received by both Co-Practice Managers, to ensure action of the safety alerts if one of the members of staff are absent. They were added to a web-based sharing & compliance platform designed for primary care.
- At the inspection in November 2019 we saw that the system in place to monitor stock levels of emergency medicines was not consistent as there were three checklists. We also saw that there were medicines in stock that were not on a checklist. At this focused inspection we were shown evidence of a much clearer system. The practice now used one checklist with all emergency medicines stocked on this list.
Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.
Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP