• Doctor
  • GP practice

Dartford East Health Centre Also known as Dr Shimmins and partners

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

Pilgrims Way, Dartford, Kent, DA1 1QY (01322) 421480

Provided and run by:
Dartford East Health Centre

Latest inspection summary

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Background to this inspection

Updated 21 August 2019

Dartford East Health Centre is located in Dartford. The surgery has good transport links and there is a pharmacy located nearby.

The provider is registered with CQC to deliver the Regulated Activities; diagnostic and screening procedures, family planning, maternity and midwifery services and treatment of disease, disorder or injury. These are delivered from this site only.

Dartford East Health Centre is situated within the Dartford, Gravesham and Swanley Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and provides services to 14859 patients under the terms of a General medical services (GMS) contract. This is a contract between general practices and NHS England for delivering services to the local community.

The provider is a partnership of five GPs, one male and four females. There are two salaried female GPs, three practice nurses, three health care assistants and a phlebotomist. The clinical staff are supported by a management team and admin and reception staff. The practice teaches students who are training to be doctors and has recently been approved to train GPs. Two of the partners are now GP trainers. The practice is part of a federation, which is a wider network of GP practices. It has also joined three other local practices to form a primary care network.

There are higher than average number of patients between the age of 0 - 14 and 30 - 55, and fewer patients aged between 20 – 30 years and over 55 than the national average. The National General Practice Profile states that 7% of the practice population is from an Asian background with a further 8% of the population originating from black, mixed or other non-white ethnic groups. Information published by Public Health England, rates the level of deprivation within the practice population group as five, on a scale of one to ten. Level one represents the highest levels of deprivation and level ten the lowest. Male life expectancy is 77 years compared to the national average of 79 years. Female life expectancy is 82 years compared to the national average of 83 years.

Overall inspection

Good

Updated 21 August 2019

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Dartford East Health Centre on 11 July 2019 as part of our inspection programme.

This inspection looked at all of the following key questions.

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 have rated this practice as good overall and good for all population groups.

We found that:

  • The practice provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm.
  • Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs.
  • Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
  • The practice organised and delivered services to meet patients’ needs. Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.
  • The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centre care.

Whilst we found no breaches of regulations, the provider should:

  • Continue to embed the process for recording the immunisation status of appropriate staff.
  • Improve the patient experience of accessing appointments at the practice by telephone.
  • Continue to work through the action plan to reduce the referral backlog and embed the new system to help prevent this from building up again.

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