Anchor Medical Practice Also known as Netherton Health Centre

On this page

• Overview
• Assessing needs
• Delivering evidence-based care and treatment
• How staff, teams and services work together
• Supporting people to live healthier lives
• Monitoring and improving outcomes
• Consent to care and treatment

At this assessment we found there were some effective systems and processes for assessing needs, delivering evidence-based care and treatment, monitoring and improving outcomes and supporting people to live healthier lives, however these required strengthening to ensure people received the appropriate care and monitoring. Screen targets for cervical screening and childhood immunisations were slightly below national averages, however, the provider followed up with people who failed to attend appointments. We saw evidence of how staff, teams and services worked together to provide effective care to patients.
 

This service scored 62 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

Leaders and staff told us the practice used codes and alerts on patients records to highlight any communication needs and any impairments. There were appropriate referral pathways to make sure that patients’ needs were addressed. We spoke with staff who were able to describe the process for coding of correspondence and care and treatment records for people.
Staff we spoke to were aware of the workflow and clinical staff were able to demonstrate how the practice provided further education and support to patients. At this assessment, we found there were systems and processes for assessing needs, delivering evidence-based care and treatment, monitoring and improving outcomes and supporting people to live healthier lives, however some areas still required strengthening to ensure all people received the appropriate monitoring, for example: high risk medicine reviews and monitoring of medicine alerts to ensure people were on the appropriate dosage in line with clinical guidance.

There were processes to keep clinicians up to date with current evidence-based practice. We found pathology, cytology and other test results via workflow had been reviewed in a timely manner, and there were effective systems and processes in place to ensure that staff had the sufficient information to inform their treatment decisions.

During the clinical review we carried out as part of this assessment we found some processes required strengthening for the management of people with long term conditions. For example: Clinical searches showed 15 people with hypothyroidism who had not received the appropriate monitoring in the past 18 months. We sampled 5 clinical records and found monitoring had not been reviewed before a prescription had been issued. We found 1 patient had not been reviewed since 2017 and 2 patients since 2023.

Staff told us how they worked together with other organisations to deliver effective care and treatment. Staff told us that they had access to the information they need to appropriately assess, plan and deliver people’s care, treatment and support; and they had enough information to plan and refer people and receive subsequent results and information following referral.

There were systems and processes in place to enable information to be shared between the provider and services to ensure continuity of care. Regular meetings were held with multi-disciplinary teams to ensure care is co-ordinated effectively. The PCN helped to support the practice by providing links to pharmacists, dieticians, mental health practitioners and social prescribers. People were able to receive co-ordinated care between the practice and the primary care network.

Systems were in place to share information about patients electronically with other services. Clinical meetings were held regularly and practice meetings were in place to ensure all staff were kept up to date with guidance and best practice.
 

Processes were in place to support people to live healthier lives. There were flags on patients who were vulnerable and required ongoing monitoring and recalls in place to review patients and educate them to manage their health needs. There was regular engagement with community services and referral pathways in place. The practice website detailed information and links for health promotion, health conditions and common health questions. We spoke with a range of people on the day of the on site assessment who told us the care, support and treatment they were provided with was very good. Results of the GP National Patient Survey showed 91% said they were involved as much as they wanted to be in decisions about their care and treatment during their last general practice appointment, this was higher than the local and national averages.

We found that processes were in place to recall and monitor patients with long term conditions and those who were prescribed high risk medicines who required regular monitoring, however these required strengthening to ensure all patients received appropriate reviews. For example, patients with hypothyroidism. Further improvements were required in the monitoring of non-medical prescribers to ensure they had the appropriate knowledge to issue medicines and followed the appropriate guidelines.

The practice was below national targets for screening and immunisations. Staff reported they followed up with patients who failed to attend their screening and immunisation appointments. We were told that children were followed up who failed to attend their appointments. The overall trend for child immunisation was below the national target of 90% for 4 of the 5 indicators and cervical screening was also below the 80% target with the practice having achieved 74.8%.

Staff were able to tell us the process they followed when obtaining consent. For example, when carrying out examinations. We found that the practice always obtained consent to care and treatment in line with legislation and guidance. For example, we reviewed a random sample of 2 records and found Do Not Attempt Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (DNACPR) decisions in place.

Staff had completed training on mental capacity and understood legislation when considering consent and decision making.