St Johns Surgery

Updated 5 December 2018

St Johns Surgery is located in Bromsgrove in Worcestershire and provides primary medical services to 13,600 patients. A nursery is co-located in the premises. The practice website is www.stjohnssurgerybromsgrove.nhs.uk. St Johns has a branch surgery at Wychbold which we visited as part of this inspection. The branch surgery offers a dispensing service. St Johns Surgery has a General Medical Services (GMS) contract. The GMS contract is the contract between general practices and NHS England for delivering primary care services to local communities. The practice covers Bromsgrove and Wychbold areas. The practice has low levels of deprivation.

St Johns Surgery is an approved GP training practice for registrars. Fully qualified doctors who want to enter into general practice spend 12 months working at the practice to gain the experience they need to become a GP. At the time of the inspection the practice had two GP registrars. The practice also teaches undergraduate medical students from the University of Birmingham. Patients have the option to see the trainees. Every consultation with a medical student is reviewed by a GP.

The practice has four male and four female GP partners, four salaried GPs, a practice manager, a nursing team including a nurse practitioner who has extended duties such as prescribing certain medicines and referring patients for tests, three pharmacists, administrative and reception staff.

Please see the evidence table for details of the opening hours and extended hours provision.

The practice does not provide an out of hours service but has alternative arrangements in place for patients to be seen when the practice is closed. The out of hours service is provided by Care UK.

Updated 5 December 2018

This practice is rated as good overall. (Previous rating 19 March 2015 – Good)

The key questions at this inspection are rated as:

Are services safe? – Good

Are services effective? – Good

Are services caring? – Good

Are services responsive? – Good

Are services well-led? – Good

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at St Johns Surgery on 22 October 2018 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. The practice had carried out nine audits in the last two years.
• 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. Several members of staff had been provided with extra training in order to progress and improve the the practice.
• The practice was the lead provider for extended hours provision in Redditch and Bromsgrove and provided the hub service.
• Same day appointments were available for urgent and non-urgent concerns.
• The practice had a very flexible approach with prescriptions. If prescriptions were requested by 11am then they were provided to the patient on the same day.
• The practice looked after a ward in the community hospital a mile away called Red Ward. There were 12 beds in Red Ward for patients. This resulted in fewer unplanned acute admissions this figure was currently at 9% of the practice population which was lower than other practices in the area. This service was accessible by GPs in surrounding practices by calling a dedicated number to make the referral. Therefore patients from other practices benefited from this service.
• The practice carried out minor surgery for their own patients and for patients of neighbouring practices. For example between 2017 to 2018 the practice had carried out 61 procedures for patients who were at different practices and 438 for patients registered at the practice .
• The practice looked after 57 patients under the violent and aggressive scheme. If there had been any incidents in a GP surgery the police were informed and the individual practices would then apply to have patients removed to this scheme. The practice had no say in who was referred to them. Patients were referred to the scheme by NHS England. Patients often seen under the scheme would be rehabilitated and be seen in ordinary general practice again once they were ready.

We saw an area of outstanding practice:

The practice had a one stop dermatology clinic. Patients with moles for example were treated in one stop as they had dermoscopy facilities.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP

Chief Inspector of General Practice

Please refer to the detailed report and the evidence tables for further information.

Updated 5 December 2018

Updated 5 December 2018

Updated 5 December 2018

Updated 5 December 2018

Updated 5 December 2018

Updated 5 December 2018