Archived: The Birches Medical Centre

Updated 7 January 2020

• The name of the registered provider is The Birches Medical Centre.
• The practice provides the following regulated activities, diagnostic and screening procedures, family planning, maternity and midwifery services, and treatment of disease, disorder or injury.
• The practice holds a Primary Medical Service (PMS) contract with NHS England.
• The practice area covers Kesgrave and the surrounding villages.
• The practice offers health care services to approximately 7,500 patients.
• There are two GP Partners at the practice (two male) and three salaried GPs (two female and one male). The practice has two female advanced nurse practitioners, two female practice nurses and two female healthcare assistants. There is a management team with administration and reception staff.
• The practice is open between 8.30am and 6.30pm Monday to Friday with extended hours to 8.30pm on a Wednesday. Urgent appointments are available for people that need them.
• Out-of-hours GP services are provided by Suffolk GP Federation Community Interest Company, via the NHS 111 service.
• We reviewed the most recent data available to us from Public Health England. This showed the patient population has a slightly lower than average number of patients aged four and under and a slightly higher than average number of patients aged between five and 17 compared to the practice average across England. It has a slightly higher proportion of patients aged over 65 compared to the practice average across England. Income deprivation affecting children and older people is significantly lower than the practice average across England. The index of deprivation decile is 10, where 1 is the most deprived and 10 is the least deprived.
• Life expectancy for patients at the practice is 83 years for males and 86 years for females; this is higher than the CCG and England expectancy which is 79 years for males and 83 years for females.

Updated 7 January 2020

The practice was previously inspected on 11 December 2018 and was rated requires improvement for providing safe and responsive services and good for providing effective, caring and well led services. Overall the practice was rated as requires improvement. The full inspection report on the December 2018 inspection can be found by selecting the 'all reports' link for The Birches Medical Centre on our website at .

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at The Birches Medical Centre on 10 December 2019 to check that improvements identified at the December 2018 inspection had been made and to re-rate the practice.

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 found that:

• The practice provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm. Improvements had been made to fire safety, health and safety, infection prevention and control management, the completion of staff training and the system for responding to safety alerts.
• 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-centred care.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Formalise the ongoing checks of the professional registration of staff.
• Continue work to review prescribing to ensure it is appropriate, especially in relation to areas of higher prescribing rates in line with national guidelines for relevant medicines.
• Review and improve the monitoring system for the recording of actions taken in relation to MHRA patient safety alerts.
• Continue efforts to improve the uptake of cervical cancer screening for eligible women.
• Ensure written consent is consistently obtained and recorded.
• Continue work to review and improve the patient experience when accessing the practice.

Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BS BM BMedSci MRCGP
Chief Inspector of General Practice

Updated 7 January 2020

Updated 7 January 2020

Updated 7 January 2020

Updated 7 January 2020

Updated 7 January 2020

Updated 7 January 2020