Moorcroft Medical Centre

Updated 17 November 2021

North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust was established in 1994. The Trust provides services across North Staffordshire and the city of Stoke on Trent to a population of 464,000 people. The Trust provides a range of inpatient and community mental health services to adults, older people and children. From the 1 December 2018, the trust integrated two primary care GP practices into its portfolio. The Trust took over responsibility for the staff and assets of the two practices. The practices lead GP maintained responsibility for the General Medical Services contract. This development reflected the Trust’s ambition to be an integrator of local services in line with plans of the Sustainability and Transformation Partnership to create an integrated care system. The Trust’s main NHS partners are the two clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), North Staffordshire CCG and Stoke on Trent CCG.

The Trusts’ primary care directorate senior leadership team included a clinical director, supported by the clinical lead for Moorcroft Medical Practice and the Moss Green Surgery GP practices, a senior service lead, senior operational manager and GP contact holder, all of these roles reported to the Trusts’ deputy director of operations responsible for all five of the Trusts directorates.

The provider is registered with the Care Quality Commission to deliver the regulated activities; diagnostic and screening procedures, maternity and midwifery services and treatment of disease, disorder or injury and surgical procedures. These are delivered from both sites and patients can access services at either site.

Moorcroft Medical Centre is located in Stoke on Trent at, Moorcroft Medical Centre, 10 Botteslow Street, Stoke-on-Trent, ST1 3NJ. The other practice site is located at: Moss Green Surgery, Bentilee Neighbourhood Centre, Dawlish Drive, Stoke-on-Trent, ST2 0EU.

Information published by Public Health England shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the lowest decile (one of 10). The lower the decile, the more deprived the practice population is relative to others.

According to the latest available data, the ethnic make-up of the practice area is 8% Asian, 86.6% White, 2.1% Black, 2.2% Mixed, and 1.1% Other.

The practice team provide cover at both practices. Staffing within the primary care directorate included:

• A Senior Service Lead for primary care
• A Clinical Lead for primary care
• Advanced Nurse Practitioners (ANP) 4.37 Whole time equivalent (WTE)
• GPs WTE 5.46 (including one WTE vacancy, currently out for recruitment)
• Practice Nurse 2.21 WTE
• An advanced pharmacist
• An assistant practitioner
• An Urgent Care Practitioner (UCP)
• Healthcare support worker 0.54 WTE
• A Senior Operations Manager 0.70 WTE
• IT Manager 0.75 WTE
• Operations Manager 1.96 WTE
• Team Administrator 2.0 WTE (new role, currently out to recruitment)
• Medical receptionists/admin/secretaries 7.67 WTE
• Medical Receptionist 9.66 WTE (including 1.66 WTE vacancy, currently out to recruitment)
• Primary Care Services Clinical Coder 2.98 WTE
• Support Services Supervisor 1.00 WTE (including vacancy 0.58, currently out to recruitment)
• Support Services Assistant 2.09 WTE

Due to the enhanced infection prevention and control measures put in place since the Covid -19 pandemic and in line with the national guidance, most GP appointments were telephone consultations. If the GP needs to see a patient face-to-face then the patient is offered a choice of either the main GP location or the branch surgery.

Extended access is provided locally provided by North Staffordshire GP Federation, where late evening and weekend appointments are available. Out of hours services are provided by Staffordshire Doctors Urgent Care, accessed via NHS 111.

Further information regarding the practice can be found on the practice website: www.moorcroftmedical.com

Updated 17 November 2021

We carried out an announced inspection at Moorcroft Medical Centre on 19 October 2021. Overall, the practice is rated as Good.

Safe - Good

Effective - Good

Caring - Good

Responsive - Good

Well-led - Outstanding

The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Moorcroft Medical Centre on our website at www.cqc.org.uk

Why we carried out this inspection

This inspection was a comprehensive inspection as part of our inspection programme.

How we carried out the inspection/review

Throughout the pandemic CQC has continued to regulate and respond to risk. However, taking into account the circumstances arising as a result of the pandemic, and in order to reduce risk, we have conducted our inspections differently.

This inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to spend a minimum amount of time on site. This was with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements.

This included:

• Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing
• Completing clinical searches on the practice’s patient records system and discussing findings with the provider
• Reviewing patient records to identify issues and clarify actions taken by the provider
• Requesting evidence from the provider
• A shorter site visit
• Conducting remote discussions with the practice Patient Participation Group

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 have rated this practice as Good overall

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 adjusted how it delivered services to meet the needs of patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.
• The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centre care.

We rated well-led as Outstanding because:

• The leadership, governance and culture were used to drive and improve the delivery of high-quality person-centred care.
• There was a demonstrated commitment to best practice performance and risk management systems and processes.
• Leaders were dedicated to reducing risk and protecting patients from harm, the service had made the decision to appoint external consultants to ensure the service was as safe as it could be.
• Practice leaders were innovative and openly shared with others.
• Staff views and suggestions were actively used to make improvements to services within the practice.

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

• Evaluate and embed the changes implemented during the inspection. For example, older medicine safety alert system searches, monitoring and coding systems for prediabetes patients and the reintroduction of downloading electronic pathology results prior to repeat prescribing.
• Develop a strategy for non-compliant patient attendance when required for medicines and/or long-term condition monitoring.
• Evaluate the changes made to the significant event root cause analysis tool.
• Continue to improve cervical and cancer screening uptake.
• Continue to improve the uptake of childhood immunisations.
• Maintain oversight and continue to monitor and review patient feedback on access.

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