Atkinson Health Centre Practice

Updated 5 February 2024

Atkinson Health Centre Practice is located in Alfred Barrow Health Centre, Duke Street, Barrow -in-Furness.

The provider is registered to deliver the regulated activities of diagnostic and screening procedures; maternity and midwifery services; treatment of disease, disorder or injury; and surgical procedures.

The practice is situated within the NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB) and delivers a General Medical Services contract (GMS) to a patient population around 5,900 patients. This is part of a contract held with NHS England. The practice is part of a wider Primary Care Network (PCN) which is called Barrow-in-Furness and Millom.

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

The practice is open between 8.30am to 6.30pm weekdays.

Out of hours services are provided by NHS 111 and extended access appointments are provided by a local provider, weekday evenings from 6.30pm to 8pm. Saturday from 9am – 5pm (based in the health centre building) and some weekday mornings from 7am – 8am (based at another local practice).

Updated 5 February 2024

We carried out a targeted assessment of Atkinson Health Centre Practice in relation to the responsive key question. This assessment was carried out on 10 January 2024 without a site visit. Overall, the practice is rated as Good. We rated the key question of responsive as Good.

Safe - Good

Effective – Good

Caring - Good

Responsive – Good

Well-led – Good

The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for the

Atkinson Health Centre Practice on our website at www.cqc.org.uk

Why we carried out this review.

We carried out this assessment as part of our work to understand how practices are working to try to meet demand for access and to better understand the experiences of people who use services and providers.

We recognise the work that GP practices have been engaged in to continue to provide safe, quality care to the people they serve. We know colleagues are doing this while demand for general practice remains exceptionally high, with more appointments being provided than ever. In this challenging context, access to general practice remains a concern for people. Our strategy makes a commitment to deliver regulation driven by people’s needs and experiences of care. These assessments of the responsive key question include looking at what practices are doing innovatively to improve patient access to primary care and sharing this information to drive improvement.

How we carried out the assessment

This assessment was carried remotely.

This included:

• Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing.
• Requesting evidence from the provider.

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 found that:

• Services are tailored to meet the needs of individual people and were delivered in a way to ensure flexibility, choice and continuity of care. The feedback from the GP National Survey reflected this.

• All feedback we received from patients regarding appointments and access was positive.
• The practice understood the needs of its local population.
• The practice dealt with complaints in a timely manner and learned from them.

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

• Continue to try and recruit patients to a patient participation group (PPG).

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