• Doctor
  • GP practice

Archived: The Limes Surgery

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

Unit 8-14, Limes Court, Conduit Lane, Hoddesdon, EN11 8EP (01992) 464533

Provided and run by:
Lea Valley Health Limited

Important: The provider of this service changed. See new profile

Latest inspection summary

On this page

Background to this inspection

Updated 9 January 2020

The Limes Surgery provides a range of primary medical services to the local population from its premises at Unit 8 - 14, Limes Court, Conduit Lane, Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, EN11 8EP.

The provider of the service is Lea Valley Health Limited. Lea Valley Health Limited is a Federation of eight NHS GP practices in the Lower Lea Valley area of Hertfordshire and serves over 75,000 patients. The contract to run The Limes Surgery commenced on 1 February 2018.

The provider is registered with CQC to deliver five Regulated Activities; diagnostic and screening procedures, maternity and midwifery services, family planning, surgical procedures and treatment of disease, disorder or injury.

Services are provided on an Alternative Provider Medical Services (APMS) contract (a nationally agreed contract designed to meet local requirements) to approximately 8,358 patients. The Limes Surgery is located within the Hertfordshire local authority and is one of 54 practices serving the NHS East and North Hertfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) area. The practice has one registered manager in place. (A registered manager is an individual registered with CQC to manage the regulated activities provided).

The practice team consists of a female lead GP and five salaried GP partners, two of which are female and three are male. There are two practice nurses, one health care assistant, one clinical pharmacist, a practice manager, a deputy practice manager, a reception manager and a team of reception and administration staff members.

The age of the practice population served is comparable to local and national averages. The practice has a lower than average number of patients aged from zero to 18 years old and a higher than average number of patients aged 65 years and over. The practice population is predominantly white British and has a black and minority ethnic population of approximately 4.7% (2011 census). Information published by Public Health England, rates the level of deprivation within the practice population group as eight, on a scale of one to 10. Level one represents the highest levels of deprivation and level 10 the lowest.

The Out of Hours service is provided by Herts Urgent Care and can be accessed via the NHS 111 service.

Overall inspection

Good

Updated 9 January 2020

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at The Limes Surgery on 3 December 2019 as part of our inspection programme.

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 good overall and good for all population groups.

We found that:

  • The practice provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm.
  • Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs.
  • Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
  • The practice organised and delivered services to meet patients’ needs.
  • The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centred care.

Whilst we found no breaches of regulations, the provider should:

  • Continue to take steps to improve uptake of women attending for their cervical screening.
  • Continue to review the results from the National GP Patient Survey and make improvements in areas below the local and national average.
  • Take steps to ensure risk assessment for the security of the premises, fire safety, emergency medicines and legionella are appropriate and regularly reviewed.
  • Formalise the process in place for supervising and auditing the non-medical prescriber.

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

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP

Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care