Egremont Medical Centre

Background to this inspection

Updated 27 March 2017

Egremont Medical Centre is situated in a significantly deprived area of Wallasey. There were 4659 patients on the practice register at the time of our inspection.

The practice is a training practice managed by two GP partners, one male and one female. There are two practice nurses, a practice manager, reception and administration staff.

The practice is open between 8am and 6.30pm Monday to Friday. Extended hours appointments are offered on alternate Wednesdays and Thursdays from 7am until 8am. There are also arrangements to ensure patients receive urgent medical assistance when the practice is closed. Out of hours patients are asked to contact the NHS 111 service to obtain healthcare advice or treatment.

The practice has a Personal Medical Services (PMS) contract and has enhanced services contracts which include childhood vaccinations.

Overall inspection

Good

Updated 27 March 2017

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We previously carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Egremont Medical Centre -JJM Hickey on 24 June 2016. The overall rating for the practice was requires improvement. The full comprehensive report on the 24 June 2016 inspection can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Egremont Medical Centre -JJM Hickey on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

This inspection was an announced focused inspection carried out on 23 February 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 in our previous inspection on 24 June 2016. This report covers our findings in relation to those requirements and also additional improvements made since our last inspection.

Overall the practice is now rated as good.

Our key findings were as follows:

The practice had addressed the issues identified during the previous inspection. Appropriate recruitment checks were in place for GP locums including Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks.
There were systems in place to ensure non-clinical complaints were appropriately investigated and acted upon.

In addition, the practice had made the following improvements:

A system was in place to report and analyse incidents to identify any trends.
The cleaning of the premises was monitored.
Safeguarding training for all staff had been completed.
The safety and quality of patient care was monitored within clinical meetings.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP)

Chief Inspector of General Practice