Background to this inspection
Updated
27 August 2019
St Bede Medical Centre is registered with the Care Quality Commission to provide primary care services to around 8,300 patients. The practice is part of Sunderland clinical commissioning group (CCG) and operates on a General Medical Services (GMS) contract agreement for general practice.
The practice provides services from the following address, which we visited during this inspection:
- Lower Dundas Street, Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, SR6 0QQ
The practice is in a purpose-built single-storey building. All patient services are on the ground floor and consultation rooms are fully accessible There is on-site parking, including disabled parking.
Patients can book appointments in person, on-line or by telephone. The service for patients requiring urgent medical attention out of hours is provided by the NHS 111 service and Vocare, which is also known locally as Northern Doctors Urgent Care.
The practice has five GP partners (two female and three male), one salaried GP (male), two practice nurses (female) and one health care assistant (female). They also employ a business manager, a practice manager and nine staff who undertake administrative or reception duties.
This is a training practice, which provides opportunities for career start GPs, trainee GPs, medical students and those studying for A levels who have an interest in a career in medicine.
Information from Public Health England placed the area in which the practice is located in the fourth most deprived decile. In general, people living in more deprived areas tend to have a greater need for health services. Average male life expectancy at the practice is 77.6 years, compared to the national average of 79.2 years. Average female life expectancy at the practice is 82.8 years, compared to the national average of 83.2 years.
94.9% of the practice population were white, 0.7% were mixed race, 3.2% were Asian, 0.8% were black and 0.4% were other races.
Updated
27 August 2019
We carried out an announced focused inspection at St Bede Medical Centre on 30 July 2019 as part of our inspection programme. We had previously carried out a comprehensive inspection at this practice on 30 July 2018 and rated them as good overall but requiring improvement for providing safe services. This was because the practice did not always ensure there was appropriate monitoring and clinical review prior to prescribing warfarin to patients.
At this inspection we followed up on the breach of regulations and other areas we said the practice should improve (identified in the July 2018 inspection).
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.
At this inspection, we found that the provider had addressed the concerns identified at the last CQC inspection.
We rated the practice as good for providing safe services because:
- They had addressed the safety of prescribing high risk medicines.
- They had implemented a policy to support staff to raise incidents and near misses through the significant event process.
- They had reviewed their fire risk assessment to ensure risks were identified and well managed.
- They had implemented regular checks of the professional registration of GPs.
At our previous inspection in June 2018, there was one other area where we told the practice they should improve. During this inspection, the practice demonstrated they had addressed the concern.
- They had developed a risk register and business plans to outline the practice vision and strategic plans.
Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.
Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP
Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care