• Doctor
  • GP practice

Archived: Stockett Lane Surgery

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

3 Stockett Lane, Maidstone, Kent, ME17 4PS (01622) 745585

Provided and run by:
Greensand Health Centre

Important: This service is now registered at a different address - see new profile

All Inspections

29 May 2019

During an annual regulatory review

We reviewed the information available to us about Stockett Lane Surgery on 29 May 2019. We did not find evidence of significant changes to the quality of service being provided since the last inspection. As a result, we decided not to inspect the surgery at this time. We will continue to monitor this information about this service throughout the year and may inspect the surgery when we see evidence of potential changes.

5 October 2016

During a routine inspection

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Stockett Lane Surgery (Greensand Health Centre) on 5 October 2016. Overall the practice is rated as good.

Our key findings across all the areas we inspected were as follows:

  • There was an open and transparent approach to safety and an effective system for reporting and recording significant events.
  • Risks to patients were assessed and well managed.
  • Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance. Staff had been trained to provide them with the skills, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care and treatment.
  • The practice worked with the local council to deliver health improvement services for patients. Initiatives included health promotion coffee mornings and staff led health walks.
  • Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.
  • Information about services and how to complain was available and easy to understand. Improvements were made to the quality of care as a result of complaints and concerns.
  • Patients said they sometimes found it difficult to make an appointment with a named GP although there were urgent appointments available the same day.
  • The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
  • There was a clear leadership structure and staff felt supported by management. The practice sought feedback from staff and patients, which it acted on.
  • The provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the duty of candour.
  • The practice had policies and procedures which governed staff recruitment. However, these had not ensured that appropriate references were received prior to staff commencing in post. For example, two newly appointed staff members had not had a reference returned from their most recent employer.
  • Results from the national GP patient survey showed that patients scored the practice lower than average in some areas of GP consultations. However, patients we spoke with told us they were happy with their consultations.
  • The practice scored lower than average in patient’s satisfaction with opening hours and being able to get through to the practice by phone. The practice had recently changed the telephone system to improve this and to provide data to help them identify the issues and address them.

We saw two area of outstanding practice:

  • The practice had developed their smoking cessation service. They had identified that 52% of patients who had attended hospital through the accident and emergency (A&E) department were smokers. As a result, the project was designed to increase the number of smokers on the programme with an overall aim of improving their health and reducing admissions to A&E. Since starting the project the practice had increased the number of patients stopping smoking from 4 to 20.

  • The practice had looked at improving services for young people and had introduced a mobile friendly website and a ‘fast pass’ system for children who were unwell and where parents may need to contact the practice quickly. The ‘fast pass’ was a direct dial telephone number that meant they could bypass the usual phone line. The practice had won a local ‘pacesetter’ award for this service where the practice was awarded for the service and for sharing best practice with other services. The ‘fast pass’ system had been extended to all patients where they were unwell, either acutely or over the long term so they could contact the practice more easily.

The areas where the provider should make improvement are:

  • Continue to improve recruitment processes in order to help ensure that where references requested are not received, these are followed up .

  • Continue to monitor patient satisfaction with regards to access to the practice, including telephone access and making appointments Monitor and review patient satisfaction with GP consultations with a view to making improvements.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

15 May 2014

During a routine inspection

Stockett Lane Surgery provides primary medical services Monday to Fridays for patients in the Coxheath and surrounding areas of Maidstone in Kent. The practice has five general practitioners (GPs), four of whom form the partnership management team. The senior partner is the registered provider of services at the practice. The services are commissioned by the West Kent Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and provide regulated activities for:

  • Diagnostic and screening procedures
  • Family planning
  • Maternity and midwifery services
  • Surgical procedures
  • Treatment of disease, disorder or injury

We spoke with patients during our inspection and over the phone the following day they were all very complementary about the services they had received from the practice. We also received many positive comments from patients who had completed comment cards prior to our inspection. All expressed a high level of satisfaction with the practice and the staff. We also met with two members of the Patient Participation Group (PPG), who emphasised the support, engagement and good working relationship the group had with the GP partners at the practice. Staff we spoke with told us that the management were very open and approachable.

We found that the practice was in the process of a return to a full complement of GPs and nursing staff which would with time provide an embedded management team. Despite some problems with staff absence, sickness and difficulty with the recruitment of suitable clinical staff, overall, we found the practice was well-led and provided caring, effective and responsive services to a wide range of patient groups, including older people, those of working age and recently retired, mothers, babies, children and young people, patients with long term conditions and complex needs, people in vulnerable circumstances and people who were experiencing poor mental health.