Cofton Medical Centre

Updated 28 October 2019

Cofton Medical Centre is located in West Heath, Birmingham. The surgery has good transport links and there are several pharmacies located nearby.

The provider is registered with CQC to deliver the Regulated Activities: diagnostic and screening procedures, family planning, maternity and midwifery services, surgical procedures and treatment of disease, disorder or injury.

Cofton Medical Centre is part of Birmingham and Solihull Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and provides services to 10,400 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 practice’s clinical team is led by six GP partners (three male and three female) and also employs a nursing team, consisting of four practice nurses (all female) and two health care assistants (both female). There is a practice manager, IT manager and a team of administration and reception staff.

The practice opening hours are Monday to Friday 8am until 6.30pm. The practice is part of My Healthcare Federation and patients had access to appointments from 6.30pm to 8pm Monday to Friday and 10am to 1pm Saturday and Sunday at the local hub. When the practice is closed, out of hours cover is provided by NHS 111.

The National General Practice Profile states that 90.5% of the practice population is from a white background with 9.5% being from Black and Ethnic Minority Groups (BME). Information published by Public Health England, rates the level of deprivation within the practice population group as three, on a scale of one to ten. Level one represents the highest levels of deprivation and level ten the lowest.

Updated 28 October 2019

We carried out an announced follow-up comprehensive inspection at Cofton Medical Centre on 16 September 2019 to follow up on breaches of regulations identified at a previous inspection on 1 October 2018.

At the previous inspection the practice was rated as requires improvement overall and in the Safe and Well-led key questions. This was because the arrangements for managing safety alerts, patients on high risk medicines and emergency medicines were ineffective. The practice was unable to demonstrate they had considered overall trends for complaints and significant events to ensure potential risks were identified and future risks were mitigated.

At this inspection we found the practice had implemented systems and processes to ensure they were effective in the management of risk and analysis of trends and the practice is now rated good in all key questions and good overall.

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.

We rated the practice as good for providing safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led services because:

• Systems and processes were in place to ensure that patients on high risk medicines received regular monitoring.
• A process for the management of emergency medicines had been implemented to ensure regular monitoring was completed.
• The practice had implemented processes to analysis trends of events and incidents to identify themes and mitigate future risk.
• A review of the management of safety alerts had been implemented to ensure alerts were acted on appropriately.
• A range of audits were in place to minimise risk and monitor service provision and improved outcomes for patients.
• The overall governance arrangements had been strengthened to ensure effective management of risk, joint working and ensuring staff were engaged in the priorties of improving patient outcomes.
• Leaders demonstrated they had the capacity and skills to deliver high quality, sustainable care.
• Patient feedback demonstrated patients were satisfied with the services received and felt staff were helpful and supportive.
• The practice organised and delivered services to meet most patients’ needs. Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.
• Published data highlighted that the practices childhood immunisation uptake rates for 2018/19 were below target. Unpublished and unverified data from the practice showed improvement and during the inspection staff assured us of ongoing efforts to improve uptake.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Continue with efforts to improve uptake of childhood immunisations and cervical cancer screening.

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

Updated 28 October 2019

Updated 28 October 2019

Updated 28 October 2019

Updated 28 October 2019

Updated 28 October 2019

Updated 28 October 2019