Cornerways Surgery - Care Quality Commission

Background to this inspection

Updated 21 June 2017

Cornerways Surgery is located in Worthing, East Sussex. The practice provides services for approximately 3,901 patients living within the Worthing area. The practice holds a General Medical Services (GMS) contract with NHS England. A GMS contract is one between the practice and NHS England where elements of the contract such as opening times are standard. The practice has a relatively large number of people aged 65 and older compared to the national average. Deprivation amongst children and older people is significantly lower than the local and national averages.

As well as a team of two GP partners (both male), the practice also employs two practices nurses (working as one whole time nurse between them). A practice manager is employed and there is a team of receptionists and administrative clerks.

The practice is open between 8am and 6.30pm on weekdays and appointments are available from 8am to 12pm and from 1pm to 5pm on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays and from 8am to 12pm on Tuesdays.

The practice has a reciprocal agreement with another local practice who takes calls and urgent appointments from Cornerways Surgery patients on Tuesday afternoons. A GP is on call until 6.30pm on weekdays for urgent appointments and there are phone appointments available with GPs throughout the day according to patient need.

The practice operates an urgent need clinic between 8am and 8.30am and 4.15pm and 5pm on weekdays when patients with urgent medical problems can attend without booking an appointment and wait to be seen. Routine appointments are bookable up to two months in advance. Patients are able to book appointments by phone, online or in person.

Patients are provided with information on how to access the duty GP or the out of hours service by calling the practice or by referring to its website.

The practice is registered to provide the regulated activities of diagnostic and screening procedures; treatment of disease, disorder and injury; family planning; and surgical procedures.

The practice provides services from the following sites:

145 George V Avenue, Worthing, West Sussex, BN11 5RZ.

Overall inspection

Good

Updated 21 June 2017

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

When we visited Cornerways Surgery on 12 April 2016 to carry out a comprehensive inspection we rated them as good overall. However, we found the practice required improvement for the provision of safe services and said they must:

Ensure the practice is able to immediately respond to the needs of a person who becomes seriously ill by installing a defibrillator and oxygen on-site.
Ensure all staff have received either a disclosure and barring service check (DBS) or an associated risk assessment. (DBS checks identify whether a person has a criminal record or is on an official list of people barred from working in roles where they may have contact with children or adults who may be vulnerable.)
Put arrangements in place for the safe management of medicines.

We also said they should;

Ensure all staff have received up to date training in key areas, including information governance.

This inspection was an announced focused inspection carried out on 25 May 2017 to confirm that the practice had carried out their plan to meet the legal requirements in relation to the breaches in regulations that we identified at our previous inspection. This report covers our findings in relation to those requirements and also additional improvements made since our last inspection. This report should be read in conjunction with the full report of our inspection on 12 April 2016, which can be found on our website at www.cqc.org.uk .

The practice is now rated as good for the provision of safe services. Overall the practice rating remains as good.

Our key findings were as follows:

Arrangements were in place to ensure the safe management of high risk medicines.
The practice had a defibrillator available on the premises and an oxygen concentrator with adult and children’s masks. (An oxygen concentrator is a machine which creates concentrated oxygen from the ambient air.).
We saw evidence all staff had received up to date training in key areas, including information governance and basic life support.
We looked at records, including six staff files, which showed all staff had received either a DBS check or an associated risk assessment.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP)

Chief Inspector of General Practice