Background to this inspection
Updated
13 November 2018
Woodhouse Hill Surgery is located at 71a Woodhouse Hill, Fartown, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, HD2 1DH, approximately two miles to the north of Huddersfield town centre. The practice is housed in a purpose built single storey building, which is owned by the lead GP. There is disabled access to the practice, and car parking spaces are available.
Website: www.woodhousehill.co.uk
The practice provides Personal Medical Services (PMS) under a locally agreed contract with NHS England. They are registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to provide the following regulated activities:
• Treatment of disease, disorder or injury
• Maternity and midwifery services
• Family planning
• Diagnostic and screening procedures
The practice catchment area is classed as being within one of the more deprived areas in England. The practice scored one on the deprivation measurement scale; the deprivation
scale goes from one to ten, with one being the most deprived. People living in more deprived areas tend to have greater need for health services.
There are currently 3,385 patients on their practice list. The National General Practice Profile shows the practice ethnicity as being diverse with 16% Asian, 13% black, and 8% mixed and 2% other non-white ethnicities. The practice demographics show a slightly higher than average percentage of people in the 0 to 9-year age group. Average life expectancy is 75 years for men and 79 years for women compared to the national average of 78 and 82 years respectively.
The General Practice Profile shows that 62% of patients registered at the practice have a
long standing health condition, compared to 56% locally and 54% nationally. The practice clinical team comprises one principal GP (male), two locum GPs (male and female), one female practice nurse and one female health care assistant. One female locum practice nurse is also employed to supplement availability of nurse appointments.
The clinical team is supported by two-part time practice managers and a reception and administrative team.
The practice opening times are from 8.30am until 6:30pm on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday and from 8:30am until midday on Thursday.
Appointments are available from 8.30am until 6pm on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday and from 8:30am until midday on Thursday.
Patients are able to be seen at another local practice on Thursday afternoons, as part of a reciprocal local arrangement. Weekly clinics are held which include childhood immunisation, asthma and coronary heart disease clinics.
Out of hours cover is provided by Local Care Direct which is accessed by calling the surgery telephone number, or by calling the NHS111 service.
When we returned for this inspection, we saw that the previously awarded ratings were displayed as required in the premises and on the practice’s website.
Updated
13 November 2018
This practice is rated as Inadequate overall.
The previous inspection, carried out on 12 December 2016 rated the practice as good overall, but requires
improvement for the key question of well-led.
The key questions are rated as:
Are services safe? – Inadequate
Are services effective? – Requires Improvement
Are services caring? – Good
Are services responsive? – Requires Improvement
Are services well-led? - Inadequate
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Woodhouse Hill Surgery on 4 April 2018 as part of our inspection programme. We also visited the practice unannounced on 10 May 2018 as part of the same
inspection due to some information of concern we received.
At this inspection we found:
• The provider was not keeping an accurate record with respect to each patient. There was a significant
backlog of patient records that required summarising. This meant that accurate and up to date information
was not always available which could put patients at risk.
• The practice had some systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. However
the practice did not have a system in place for carrying out a planned review of changes introduced following
significant events, to determine their effectiveness and to assure themselves that changes had been
embedded into practice.
• The practice had some governance arrangements in place. However, there were areas where these were
not effective. For example, the provider did not have clear or effective systems in place for the planning and
provision of staffing levels.
• The practice reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided. However not
all patients were clinically coded correctly to support delivery of care and treatment.
• Clinicians ensured that in most cases, care and treatment was delivered according to evidence based
guidelines.
• Staff involved and treated patients with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
• Patients found the appointment system easy to use and the ones we spoke with reported that they were
able to access care when they needed it. However, national GP patient survey results with regards to
access were lower than local and national averages.
The areas where the provider must make improvements are:
• Care and treatment must be provided in a safe way for service users.
• Establish effective systems and processes to ensure good governance in accordance with the fundamental
standards of care.
The areas where the provider should make improvements are:
• The provider should review and act upon the results of patient satisfaction surveys, and ensure that they can
meet the needs of their patient population in the future. In particular, patient satisfaction with access to
the service was consistently below local and national average satisfaction rates.
• The recruitment process in place was not operating effectively. Some of the information required to be
held to support the recruitment of staff was not available.
I am placing this service in special measures. Services placed in special measures will be inspected again within
six months. If insufficient improvements have been made such that there remains a rating of inadequate for any population group, key question or overall, we will take action in line with our enforcement procedures to begin the process of preventing the provider from operating the service. This will lead to cancelling their registration or to varying the terms of their registration within six months if they do not improve.
The service will be kept under review and if needed could be escalated to urgent enforcement action. Where
necessary, another inspection will be conducted within a further six months, and if there is not enough
improvement we will move to close the service by adopting our proposal to remove this location or cancel
the provider’s registration.
Special measures will give people who use the service the reassurance that the care they get should improve.
Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP)
Chief Inspector of General Practice