SGPA Bunny Hill Primary Care Centre Also known as Sunderland GP Alliance Limited

Updated 16 June 2022

SGPA Bunnyhill Primary Care Centre is registered with the Care Quality Commission to provide NHS Out of Hours services. The service provides an extended GP access service from Bunnyhill Centre, Hylton Lane, Sunderland.

The provider of this service is Sunderland GP Alliance which is a federation of all 38 practices in the Sunderland clinical commissioning group area. The provider has five extended access services which are registered separately with CQC. These are all run as one service from five locations and staff work across them all. We inspected the other four services in 2020, this service was not inspected at that time as it was still in the process of being registered with the commission. The administrative records for all of the services are held at Borough Road, Sunderland, SR1 2HJ, which we visited as part of this inspection.

Bunnyhill Primary Care Centre is situated in dedicated accommodation with facilities managed by NHS Property services. The building is owned by the local authority. We visited this site as part of this inspection.

There was disabled parking and access, and all services were on the ground floor. There was a car park close by.

The service directly employs some of the managers and administrators in the service. Most of the staff who work there are employed by the GP practices who are part of the federation and are employed as sessional staff. The service rarely used locum staff.

The service provides extended GP access appointments via;

• The patients’ registered GP.
• NHS 111 service.

The service is led by GPs. There are advanced nurse practitioners working in the service (who are all medical prescribers), practice nurses and health care assistants. There was always a hub manager on duty who worked across all of the five locations when the service was open. The service was provided:

• Monday – Friday 6pm – 8.30pm.
• Saturday & Sunday 9am - 5.30pm.
• Bank holidays 10am – 2pm.

During the hours above the provider can offer additional services, such as, heart disease monitoring, cervical cytology and blood pressure monitoring. Some of these services had stopped during the pandemic. The provider was in the process of re-introducing these services. COVID vaccinations could also be administered from this location when the clinics were required.

The service for patients requiring urgent medical care outside of these and the GP surgery hours is provided by the NHS 111 service.

Updated 16 June 2022

This service is rated as Good overall.

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? – Good

Are services effective? – Good

Are services caring? – Good

Are services responsive? – Good

Are services well-led? –Outstanding

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at SGPA Bunnyhill Primary Care Centre on 24 May 2022 as part of our comprehensive inspection programme.

At this inspection we found:

• The service had good systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. When they did happen, the service learned from them and improved their processes.
• The service reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care they provided. They ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence-based guidelines.
• Staff involved and treated people with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
• Patients were able to access care and treatment from the service within an appropriate timescale for their needs.

We saw areas of outstanding practice:

• The provider’s approach to service delivery had integration at the heart of any service development. They worked in coordination with others to make sure they were meeting the needs of the local population. The service was a key component of wider system integration and responded to surges in demand and formed a part of the clinical commissioning group’s overall urgent care solution. They were agile in working across the care sector to set up new services, in response to patient needs and the wider health economy. They made sure they listened to the patient voice when developing or improving services.
• Quality improvement was an essential component of the provider’s strategy. We found they had comprehensive quality and improvement systems, supported by a thorough approach to audit. There was a strong focus on improvement within the service by seeking out and embedding new ways of providing care and treatment.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP

Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care