Westbury Medical Centre

Updated 19 December 2017

Westbury Medical Centre is a well-established GP practice and is located in Westbury, Shrewsbury. It is part of the NHS Shropshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). The total practice patient population is 2,872. The practice is located within one of the less deprived areas of Shrewsbury. They are a dispensing practice situated in a rural locality. This can present significant challenges for the practice with secondary care providers, transport services, patient mobile phone, and internet access. The practice is a single storey building with good access for cars and has parking bays for people with a physical disability. There is a ramp for ease of access for wheelchairs and pushchairs.

The practice has a Lead GP clinical partner and a non-clinical partner. GP services are provided by the female Lead GP who provides 0.7 whole time equivalent hours (WTE) and four salaried GPs (two female and two male) providing a total of 1.1 WTE hours. In addition, two practice nurses (one male and one female) provide one WTE. The clinical team are supported by the practice manager, dispensary staff and reception and administrative staff. The practice employs, together with the CCG, a male community and care coordinator who attends the practice for two and a half days each week. (The community and care coordinator supports the practice team to proactively identify frail and vulnerable people and to assess and signpost where appropriate as the practices expert on available community resources).

The practice provides a GP led walk in surgery for patients Monday to Friday from 8.30am to 10am, or patients can call before 10am and will be seen by a doctor that morning. Bookable afternoon appointments with a GP are available from 3pm to 5.15pm. Nurse appointments are bookable Monday to Friday from 8.30am to 11pm and 2pm to 5.30pm. To arrange and book appointments patients, can call the practice Monday to Friday between 8:20am and 6pm. The practice does not provide an out-of-hours service to its own patients but has alternative arrangements for patients to be seen when the practice is closed through Shropdoc, the out-of-hours service provider.

Services provided at the practice included contraception and sexual health, asthma, diabetes and a drop in clinic for lifestyle checks and advice for example, smoking cessation.

The practice has a General Medical Services (GMS) contract with NHS England. This is a contract for the practice to deliver general medical services to the local community or communities. They also provide some Directed Enhanced Services, for example they are a dispensing practice, offer minor surgery and childhood vaccination/immunisation schemes for their patients.

Updated 19 December 2017

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

This practice is rated as Good overall. (Previous inspection November 2014 – Rated Requires improvement overall).

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? – Good

Are services effective? – Good

Are services caring? – Good

Are services responsive? – Good

Are services well-led? - Good

As part of our inspection process, we also look at the quality of care for specific population groups. The population groups are rated as:

Older People – Good

People with long-term conditions – Good

Families, children and young people – Good

Working age people (including those recently retired and students – Good

People whose circumstances may make them vulnerable – Good

People experiencing poor mental health (including people with dementia) - Good

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Westbury Medical Centre on 21 November 2017. As part of our inspection programme.

At this inspection we found:

• The practice had clear systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. When incidents did happen, the practice learned from them and improved their processes.

• The practice routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided. It ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence- based guidelines.

• Staff involved and treated patients with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.

• Patients found the appointment system easy to use and reported that they were able to access care when they needed it.

• There was a strong focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels of the organisation.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Date the policies recently reviewed and note an indicative date for the next review.

• Implement a systematic approach to patient consent in respect of minor surgical procedures.

• Make available to complainants information about the next steps to take following any complaint investigation.

• Consider suitable delegation and document any division of responsibilities and governance processes to enable appropriate continuance.

• Continue to action areas identified for improvement in the infection prevention and control audit.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

Updated 19 December 2017

Updated 19 December 2017

Updated 19 December 2017

Updated 19 December 2017

Updated 19 December 2017

Updated 19 December 2017