• Doctor
  • GP practice

The Porch Surgery

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

Beechfield Road, Corsham, Wiltshire, SN13 9DL (01249) 712232

Provided and run by:
The Porch Surgery

Latest inspection summary

On this page

Background to this inspection

Updated 22 February 2019

The Porch Surgery is a GP practice located in Corsham, Wiltshire. It is one of 47 practices within the Wiltshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) area and has approximately 11,300 patients.

The practice occupies a purpose-built building with patient services located on the ground floor. There are 12 consulting rooms and two treatment rooms. There are automatic front doors, a toilet suitable for disabled patients and a check in screen, which included languages other than English.

The practice is registered to provide the following regulated activities:

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

The practice provides a number of services and clinics for its patients, including childhood immunisations, family planning, minor surgery, and a range of health lifestyle management and advice services, including asthma management, diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure management. The practice delivers some services in partnership with other GP practices in Wiltshire.

Data available shows a measure of deprivation in the local area recorded as 9, on a scale of 1-10, where a higher score indicates a less deprived area. (Note that the circumstances and lifestyles of the people living in an area affect its deprivation score. Not everyone living in a deprived area is deprived and not all deprived people live in deprived areas). The area the practice serves has relatively low numbers of patients from noticeably different cultural backgrounds. 98% of the practice population describes itself as white British. Average male and female life expectancy for patients at the practice is 82 and 84 years respectively, which is similar to the Wiltshire average and in line with the national average of 79 and 83 years respectively.

There are six GP partners and two salaried GPs making a full-time equivalent of five GPs. There are two nurse prescribers, three practice nurses, two health care assistants and a phlebotomist. They are supported by a reception and administrative team of 17 staff and three team managers. At the time of our inspection they did not have a Practice Manager in post.

The practice is open from 8am to 12.30pm and 1.30pm to 6.30pm, Monday to Friday. Between 12.30 and 1.30pm, when the practice closed for lunch an emergency phone number was available for contacting the practice which was displayed in the practice reception and on their website. Appointments with a GP are 8.10am to 11.50am and 2.40pm to 6.10pm, Monday to Friday. The practice offered extended hours appointments from 7.15am, evening appointments up to 7.30pm and the practice is open on alternate Saturday mornings. The practice also worked in partnership with other local practices to provide additional access to GP appointments every weekday evening up to 8pm and also at weekends.

The practice has opted out of providing a full Out of Hours service to its own patients. Patients can access an Out of Hours GP service by calling NHS 111. Information about how to contact the out of hours service was available in the waiting area and on the practice website.

The practice has a General Medical Services contract with NHS England (a locally agreed contract negotiated between NHS England and the practice).

The practice provides services from a single site:

  • The Porch Surgery, Beechfield Road, Corsham, Wiltshire, SN13 9DL

The practice has a website containing further information. It can be found here:   www.porchsurgery.nhs.uk

Overall inspection

Good

Updated 22 February 2019

This practice is rated as Good overall. (Previous inspection May 2018 – Good)

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? – Good

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Porch Surgery on 29 May 2018 as part of our inspection programme. We rated the practice as Requires Improvement for the provision of safe services because:

  • The practice did not monitor the temperature of their vaccine fridges in line with recommended guidance.
  • The practice did not take appropriate action when the temperature of the vaccine fridges went above the recommended limit in line with their policy or national guidance.

The full report on these, inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Cross Plain Health Centre on our website at .

This report covers the inspection we carried out on 5 February 2019, to review the actions taken by the practice to improve the quality of care and to confirm that the practice was meeting legal requirements in relation to for the provision of safe services. We based our judgement of the quality of care at this service is 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:

  • The practice had systems for the appropriate and safe use of medicines, including medicines optimisation. The practice had made significant changes to their processes and systems relating to the management of vaccines and were now meeting the regulatory requirements.
  • The practice had clear systems, practices and processes to keep people safe and safeguarded from abuse.
  • 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.
  • Appropriate standards of cleanliness and hygiene were met.
  • The practice learned and made improvements when things went wrong.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGPChief Inspector of General Practice