Larksfield Surgery Medical Partnership

Background to this inspection

Updated 13 July 2017

Larksfield Surgery Medical Partnership provides a range of primary medical services, including a dispensary, to the residents of Stotfold and surrounding area. The practice is housed in a purpose built medical centre, which opened in 1999.

The practice has approximately 13,400 patients with services provided under a General Medical Services (GMS) contract, a nationally agreed contract with NHS England. The practice falls within in the NHS Bedfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). The practice population is pre-dominantly white British and broadly follows the England national profile, apart from where there are fewer patients between the ages of 10 and 30 years of age. National data indicates the area is one of low deprivation and it falls in the 10th least deprived decile. Average life expectancy for patients at the practice is two year longer than the local CCG average and three years longer than the England national average.

The practice is led by a principal GP and has four other GP partners. The practice employs two salaried GPs and, as a training practice, there are also two GP Registrars. The gender mix of GPs ensured that patients could choose to see either a male or female GP. The nursing team comprises five nurses and two Health Care Assistants, managed by a senior nurse. There is a large team of reception, secretarial and administrative staff led by two interim practice managers. The dispensary staff and other specialist roles completed the complement of staff at the practice.

The practice is open from 8am to 6.30pm Monday to Friday with appointments available between 8am and 5.50pm. Appointments are available during extended hours surgery between 7am to 7.50am and 6.40pm to 7.15pm on different days throughout the week. Appointments in these extended hours surgeries must be pre-booked.

When the practice is closed out-of-hours services are provided by Herts Urgent Care and can be accessed via the NHS 111 service. Information about out-of-hours services is available on the practice leaflet and website.

Overall inspection

Good

Updated 13 July 2017

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection of Larksfield Surgery Medical Partnership on 20 September 2016. The overall rating for the practice was good with requires improvement for safe.

The full comprehensive report from the September 2016 inspection can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Larksfield Surgery Medical Partnership on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

This inspection was an announced focused follow up inspection carried out on 4 July 2017 to confirm that the practice had carried out their plan to meet the recomendations for improvement that we identified in our previous inspection on 20 September 2016.

The areas identified as requiring improvement during our inspection in September 2016 were as follows:

The practice were told they should:

Establish a system that will ensure all Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) alerts are appropriately reviewed and acted on.
Review arrangements in place to monitor the updating of medical records.

Overall the practice is now rated as good in all areas.

Our focused inspection on 4 July 2017 showed that improvements had been made and our key findings across the areas we inspected were as follows:

There was an open and transparent approach to safety. The practice had improved the system to manage, review and action patient safety alerts. For example, those received from the Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
Risks to patients were assessed and well managed. The practice had implemented a system to review and monitor the changes made to patients’ records after they had been updated by clerical staff.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP)

Chief Inspector of General Practice