Alkrington Junction Practice

Updated 15 August 2023

Alkrington Junction Practice is located in Middleton, Greater Manchester at:

346 Grimshaw Lane

Middleton Junction

Manchester

M24 2AU

The practice has a branch surgery at:

Alkrington Health Centre

Hardfield Road

Middleton

Manchester

M24 1PQ

Both sites were visited during the inspection.

The provider is registered with CQC to deliver the regulated activities; diagnostic and screening procedures, family planning, maternity and midwifery services, treatment of disease, disorder or injury and surgical procedures. These are delivered from both sites.

The practice offers services from both a main practice and a branch surgery. Patients can access services at either surgery.

The practice is situated within the NHS Greater Manchester Integrated Care Board (ICB) and delivers General Medical Services (GMS) to a patient population of about 8570. This is part of a contract held with NHS England.

The practice is part of a wider group of GP practices called Middleton Primary Care Network (PCN). PCNs work together with community, mental health, social care, pharmacy, hospital and voluntary services in their local area.

Information published by Office for Health Improvement and Disparities shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the fourth lowest decile (four of 10). The lower the decile, the more deprived the practice population is relative to others.

According to the latest available data, the ethnic make-up of the practice area is 94.1% White, 2.8% Asian, 1.3% Black and the remainder are other ethnicities and mixed.

The age distribution of the practice population closely mirrors the local and national averages. There is an equal number of male patients registered at the practice as females.

There is a team of 3 GP partners (1 male and 2 female), 2 salaried GPs (male) and 1 regular long term locum (male) who provide cover at both practices. The practice has a nursing team made up of 1 nurse prescriber, 1 practice nurse, 1 nurse associate, 1 health care assistant, 2 phlebotomists and 1 locum diabetes nurse. The nursing team provide nurse led clinics for long-term conditions at both the main and the branch locations. The clinical team includes a mental health team with 2 staff members and 1 EMDR practitioner (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing). The clinical team are supported at the practice by a team of reception and administration staff. The practice manager is based at the main location to provide managerial oversight.

The practice is open between 8am to 6.30pm Monday to Friday. The practice offers a range of appointment types including book on the day, telephone consultations and advance appointments.

Enhanced access is provided locally by Rochdale Health Alliance, where late evening and weekend appointments are available. Out of hours services are provided by Bury and Rochdale Doctors On Call (BARDOC).

Updated 15 August 2023

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Alkrington Junction Practice on 8 June 2023. Overall, the practice is rated as requires improvement.

Safe - requires improvement

Effective – requires improvement

Caring - good

Responsive – requires improvement

Well-led – good

This provider was previously inspected on 23 January 2017, the practice was rated good overall and good for all key questions.

The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Alkrington Junction Practice on our website at www.cqc.org.uk

Why we carried out this inspection

We carried out this inspection to follow up concerns identified during our monitoring process.

How we carried out the inspection

This inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to spend a minimum amount of time on site.

This included

• Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing.
• Reviewing completed questionnaires sent to staff prior to the on-site visit
• Completing clinical searches on the practice’s patient records system (this was with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements).
• Reviewing patient records to identify issues and clarify actions taken by the provider.
• Requesting evidence from the provider.
• A short site visit.

Our findings

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 requires improvement overall.

We rated the practice as requires improvement for providing safe services because:

• Aspects of medicines management which included the management of patients prescribed some high-risk medicines, medicines reviews and medicines usage were not always effective.

We have rated this practice as requires improvement for providing effective services because:

• The management of patients with some long-term conditions was not always in line with guidance.

We have rated this practice as requires improvement for responsive because:

• Aspects of patient satisfaction are below the local and national averages.

We found that:

• Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
• Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.
• Patients were not always provided with care in a way that kept them safe and protected from the risk of harm.
• Patients did not always receive effective care and treatment that met their needs.

We found one breach of regulations. The area where the provider must make improvements are:

• Provide care and treatment in a safe way to patients.

We have told the provider they should:

• Give staff access to a Freedom to Speak Up Guardian
• Analyse and improve national patient survey results
• Maintain record of staff immunisations

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

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

Chief Inspector of Health Care