The Care Quality Commission
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  • GP practice

Archived: Litherland Practice

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

Litherland Town Hall Health Centre, Hatton Hill Road, Litherland, Liverpool, Merseyside, L21 9JN

Provided and run by:
SSP Health Ltd

Important: This service was previously managed by a different provider - see old profile

All Inspections

10 September 2015

During a routine inspection

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Litherland Practice on 10 September 2015. Overall the practice is rated as good.

Specifically, we found the practice to be good for providing safe, well-led, effective, caring and responsive services. It was also good for providing services for all the population groups it serves.

Our key findings across all the areas we inspected 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, appropriately reviewed and addressed.
  • Urgent appointments were available the same day but not necessarily with the GP of their choice.
  • Risks to patients were assessed and well managed.
  • 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.
  • Recruitment records needed improvement with regard to the carrying out of health checks on prospective employees and or locum staff.
  • Patients said they were treated with compassion, 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.
  • 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 management. The practice proactively sought feedback from staff and patients, which it acted on.

There were areas where the provider should make improvements.

Importantly the provider should:

  • Ensure that health assessments are considered as part of the recruitment process to ensure staff are able to carry out their roles effectively.
  • Ensure that the practice website contains sufficient health promotion information for patients.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP

Chief Inspector of General f findings

11 August 2014

During an inspection looking at part of the service

We visited the practice on 11 August 2014 to look at medicines management. This inspection was carried out to follow-up improvements the practice had been required to make, following our inspection in January 2014. At that time we found medicines were not managed correctly.

We spoke with staff but on this occasion we did not speak with people using the service. We found medicines were safely stored, monitored appropriately and were fit for use. The practice had effective systems in place for monitoring, prescribing and managing repeat prescriptions.

23 January 2014

During an inspection looking at part of the service

When we inspected the practice in August 2013 the patients we spoke with were dissatisfied with the service. As part of this inspection we contacted 15 patients. Although the feedback was mixed, the majority of patients had seen positive improvements in the service, particularly in relation to contacting the practice by telephone and securing a GP appointment in a timely way.

One patient said, 'Getting an appointment is better than it used to be. You may have to ring a few times but eventually you get through.' Another patient said, 'I called in for an appointment this morning. I got one straight away and was amazed as this has never happened before.'

Although some patients were not aware regular GPs had been recruited for the practice, most patients were pleased as this meant they would receive better continuity of care.

Patients were satisfied that the process for getting their repeat prescriptions had improved. One patient told us, 'My repeat prescription is ready on time now. I hope the practice can maintain this.' However, the arrangements for managing medicines, in particular the reauthorisation of repeat prescriptions did not assure us that prescribed medicines always reflected patients' current clinical needs.

Medical records and other records containing confidential information were stored securely.

Systems, including an effective process for managing complaints, were in place to monitor the safety and quality of the service.

27 August 2013

During an inspection in response to concerns

The patients we spoke with as part of our inspection told us there had been difficulties making contact with the practice. One patient said, 'The phone continues to ring and nobody picks it up.' Another patient said, 'It is frustrating when trying to get through to the practice.' There was no regular GP at the practice and patients told us there were many occasions when the practice did not have locum GP cover. This had an impact on patients getting their repeat prescriptions in a timely way. Patients were concerned about the continuity of care because they saw a variety of different doctors.

Although recruitment was under way for a GP, practice nurse and administrative staff, the practice was short of permanent staff on the day of our inspection.

The systems to regularly assess and monitor the quality of service that patients received were not effective. For example, no quality audits (checks) had taken place to monitor the quality of locum GP practice or the performance of agency practice nurses. Complaints were not being managed in accordance with the practice complaint procedure.

There was a backlog of paper medical records for summarising, scanning and coding and these records were not stored securely.