Archived: Lakeside Medical Centre

Updated 20 May 2016

Lakeside Medical Centre is located in the village of Perton, part of the West Midlands conurbation. Perton was once an airfield and now has a population of approximately 10,500. The area is less deprived and has lower unemployment when compared to national averages.

The practice was established in 1988 and now has three GP partners. The premises is a purpose-built building that has been developed and further extensions are planned to increase the services that can be offered to the patients. The practice is accredited to provide training to new and existing doctors at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

The practice has a list size of 5,910 patients. The population distribution shows above national average numbers of patients over 55 years of age and below average number of patients less than 40 years of age. The ethnicity data for the practice shows 92.2% of patients are white British.

The three GP partners are full time. The partners are assisted by a clinical team consisting of a GP registrar, two practice nurses and a healthcare assistant. The administration team consists of a practice manager and six administration staff that includes two apprentices.

The practice opens from 8am to 6.30pm, Monday to Friday. Consulting times in the morning are from 8am to 11.45 am and in the afternoon from 2pm to 6pm. The practice offers extended hours between 6.30pm and 8pm on alternate Wednesdays and Thursdays. When the practice is closed patients are advised to call the NHS 111 service or 999 for life threatening emergencies. The practice has opted out of providing an out of hours service choosing instead to use a third party provider. The nearest hospital with an A&E unit and a walk in service is New Cross Hospital, Wolverhampton.

Updated 20 May 2016

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Lakeside Medical Centre on 4 April 2016. Overall the practice is rated as Good.

Please note that when referring to information throughout this report, for example any reference to the Quality and Outcomes Framework data, this relates to the most recent information available to the Care Quality Commission (CQC) at that time.

Our key findings were as follows:

• Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns and to report incidents and near misses. Information about safety was recorded, monitored, reviewed and addressed.
• Risks to patients and staff were assessed.
• Patients’ needs were assessed and care was planned and delivered following best practice guidance. Staff had received training appropriate to their roles and any further training needs had been identified and planned.
• Patients said they were treated with dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.
• Information about services and how to complain was available and easy to understand.
• Patients told us they could get an appointment when they needed one. Urgent appointments were available the same day.
• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
• There was a clear leadership structure and staff felt supported by the management. The practice proactively sought feedback from staff, patients and third party organisations, which it acted on.
• The practice engaged with the local community and organised events to promote services and support service users.

We saw a number of areas where the practice should make improvements.

The practice should:

• Complete an assessment of identified risks to patients and staff.

• Implement a robust system to follow up and document outcomes for children who had not attended hospital appointments.

• Introduce an evidence based approach for optimising the care provided to all palliative care patients.

• Implement an alert system to support staff to identify patients who are also carers.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

Updated 20 May 2016

The practice is rated as good for the care of people with long-term conditions. Patients were reviewed in GP and nurse led chronic disease management clinics.  We found that the nursing staff had the knowledge, skills and competency to respond to the needs of patients with long term conditions such as diabetes and asthma. Longer appointments and home visits were available when needed. Written management plans had been developed for patients with long term conditions and those at risk of hospital admissions. For those people with the most complex needs, the GPs worked with relevant health and social care professionals to deliver a multidisciplinary package of care. The practice held a list of palliative patients but there was no structured framework used to provide end of life care except for those patients with cancer.

Updated 20 May 2016

The practice is rated as good for the care of families, children and young people. There were systems in place to identify and follow up children who were at risk, for example, children and young people who had protection plans in place. However, there was no documented evidence of follow up for children who did not attend hospital appointments. The practice created a report on the day so this could be followed up in the future. Appointments were available outside of school hours and the premises were suitable for children and babies. Same day emergency appointments were available for children. There were screening and vaccination programmes in place and the practice indicators were comparable with the local Clinical Commissioning Group averages. The practice worked with the health visiting team to encourage attendance. New mothers were offered post-natal checks and development checks for their babies. The practice had plans to hold sessions at local schools to promote health education topics such as healthy eating.

Updated 20 May 2016

The practice is rated as good for the care of older people. Every patient over the age of 75 years had a named GP and all hospital admissions were reviewed. This included patients that resided in nursing and care homes. The practice offered proactive, personalised care to meet the needs of the older people in its population and had a range of enhanced services, for example, risk profiling and case management. All over 75 year olds had a completed care plan. The practice was responsive to the needs of older people and offered home visits and offered longer appointments as required. The practice had identified and supported patients who were also carers.  

Updated 20 May 2016

The practice is rated as good for the care of working-age people (including those recently retired and students). The needs of the working age population, those recently retired and students had been identified and the practice had adjusted the services it offered to ensure these were accessible, flexible and offered continuity of care. A range of on-line services were available, including medication requests, booking appointments and access to health medical records. The practice offered all patients aged 40 to 75 years old a health check with the nursing team. The practice offered extended opening hours and a full range of health promotion and screening that reflected the needs for this age group.

Updated 20 May 2016

The practice is rated as good for the care of people experiencing poor mental health (including people with dementia). Patients who presented with an acute mental health crisis were offered same day appointments. People experiencing poor mental health were offered an annual physical health check. Dementia screening was offered to patients identified in the at risk groups. It carried out advance care planning for patients with dementia.

The practice had regular meetings with other health professionals in the case management of patients with mental health needs.

The practice worked closely with the health visiting team to support mothers experiencing post-natal depression. It had told patients about how to access various support groups and voluntary organisations and signposted patients to support groups where appropriate.

Updated 20 May 2016

The practice is rated as good for the care of people whose circumstances may make them vulnerable. We found that the practice enabled all patients to access their GP services and assisted those with hearing and sight difficulties. A translation service available for non-English speaking patients was demonstrated by practice staff using an application on a mobile telephone.

The practice held a register of patients with a learning disability and had developed individual care plans for each patient. Out of 16 patients on the learning disabilities register, 15 had received annual health checks in the preceding 12 months. Longer appointments were offered for patients with a learning disability and carers were encouraged by GPs to be involved with care planning.

The practice had a register of vulnerable patients and displayed information about how to access various support groups and voluntary organisations. For example there were posters for a local substance misuse support service. Staff knew how to recognise signs of abuse in vulnerable adults and children. Staff were aware of their responsibilities regarding information sharing, documentation of safeguarding concerns and how to contact relevant agencies in normal working hours and out of hours.