• Doctor
  • GP practice

Archived: Wearside Medical Practice

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

Pallion Health Centre, Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, SR4 7XF (0191) 568 9510

Provided and run by:
Wearside Medical Practice

Important: The provider of this service changed. See new profile

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Background to this inspection

Updated 12 July 2019

Wearside Medical Practice provides care and treatment to approximately 7,483 patients, of all ages, living in Hylton and the surrounding areas of Sunderland. The practice is part of NHS Sunderland Clinical Commissioning Group and operates on a Personal Medical Services (PMS) contract.

The practice provides services from the following address.

  • Pallion Health Centre, Hylton Road, Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, SR4 7XF.

We visited this address as part of this inspection.

The practice is located in a purpose built, two-storey building. There is a lift to the first floor. There is on-site parking, including for patients with disabilities. The service shares the premises with a walk-in centre and other GP practices.

The practice has two GPs partners (one male and one female). The male GP partner has not worked at the practice for over 12 months and does not play an active part in the management of the practice. The female GP partner told us NHS England had recently varied the practice’s NHS England contract to remove this GP. They also said they would shortly submit an application to register as an individual, to ensure their Care Quality Commission registration was correct. A new salaried GP (female) has been appointed. The practice also employs an advanced nurse practitioner (female), two practice nurses (female), and two healthcare assistants (female). There are also a range of non-clinical staff members including: a practice manager; an administrative team leader; receptionists; a clinical coder; and three administrative apprentices.

Information taken from Public Health England placed the area in which the practice is located in the third most deprived decile. This shows the practice serves an area where deprivation is higher than the England average. In general, people living in more deprived areas tend to have a greater need for health services. The practice has fewer patients under 18 years of age, and over 65 years of age, than the England averages. The percentage of people with a long-standing health condition is above the England average, as is the percentage of patients with caring responsibilities. National data shows that 6.8% of the population are from an Asian background, 1% are black and 1.4% are from other non-white ethnic groups.

Overall inspection

Good

Updated 12 July 2019

We carried out an announced focused inspection at Wearside Medical Practice, on 29 May 2019. This was part of our ongoing inspection programme, but we also wanted to check the practice had made the improvements we said they should, when we last inspected the practice in May 2018.

At the last inspection, we rated the practice as requires improvement for providing well-led services. We asked the provider to:

  • Develop effective systems and processes to ensure good governance.
  • Review and improve their recruitment procedures. In particular, to ensure the practice completed disclosure and barring service (DBS) checks prior to the appointment of new staff.
  • Complete the process of recording the immunisation status of all non-clinical staff.
  • Ensure that international normalized ratio (INR) results for warfarin are added to patients’ medical records.

At this inspection, we found that the provider had acted to address these areas. However, they should:

  • Review the DBS certificates of clinical staff to make sure the checks carried out are at the appropriate level for the role in which they are employed.

We based our judgement of the quality of care at this service 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 rated this practice as good overall. (Previous rating May 2018 – Good).

We rated the practice as good for providing well led services because the practice had:

  • Strengthened and improved their governance systems and processes.
  • Reviewed their recruitment procedures and ensured that all staff who had commenced employment since the last inspection had undergone a DBS check before starting work at the practice.
  • Documented the immunisation status of all non-clinical staff.
  • Set up a system which ensured that patients’ INR warfarin results are added to their medical records.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP

Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care