The Valkyrie Surgery

Updated 27 February 2024

The Valkyrie surgery is located at

50 Valkyrie Road

Westcliff-on-Sea

Essex

SS0 8BU

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

At the time of the inspection, the practice did not have a registered manager in place however informed us there was one in post yet to complete their CQC registration. A registered manager is in day-to-day charge of one more regulated activities. The registered manager has joint legal responsibility with the provider for ensuring compliance with the regulations.

The practice is situated within the Mid and South Essex Integrated Care System (ICS) and delivers General Medical Services (GMS) to a patient population of about 17,250. This is part of a contract held with NHS England.

Information published by Office for Health Improvement and Disparities shows that deprivation within the practice population group is rated 5, on a scale of one to 10. The lower the rating 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 84.2% White, 7% Asian, 3.7% Black, 3.7% Mixed and 1.4% Other.

The practice’s clinical team consists of 3 GP Partners with 2 additional GP Partners yet to register with the CQC. There are 6 salaried GPs and a clinical team consisting of a prescribing nurse manager, practice nurse prescriber, 2 practice nurses, a nurse practitioner and an assistance nurse practitioner, a paramedic and 2 Healthcare Assistants.

They are supported by a team of reception, administrative staff including a practice manager, assistant practice manager, medical secretary and 2 medical secretaries.

The practice is open between 8 am to 6.30 pm Monday to Friday. The practice offers a range of appointment types including on the day, telephone consultations and advance appointments.

Extended access is provided at the practice where late evening and weekend appointments are available. Out of hours services are accessed by contacting NHS 111.

Updated 27 February 2024

We carried out an announced focused inspection at The Valkyrie Surgery on 11 January 2024. Overall, the practice is rated as good.

At this inspection we rated the practice as requires improvement for providing responsive services. We did not inspect safe, effective, caring and well-led, these ratings have been carried forward from the previous inspection.

Safe - Good

Effective - Good

Caring – Good

Responsive – Requires Improvement

Well-led - Good

Following our previous comprehensive inspection on 13 February 2019 the practice was rated good overall and for all key questions.

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

Why we carried out this inspection

We carried out this assessment as part of our work to understand how practices are working to try to meet peoples demands 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, high-quality care to the people they serve. We know staff are carrying this out whilst the demand for general practice remains exceptionally high, with more appointments being provided than ever. However, 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 inspection

This inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to spend a minimum amount of time on site.

This assessment was carried out remotely. It did not include a site visit.

The process included:

• Conducting an interview with the provider and members of staff using video conferencing.
• Reviewing patient feedback from a range of sources
• Requesting evidence from the provider.
• Reviewing data we hold about the provider.
• Seeking information/feedback from relevant stakeholders

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:

• During the assessment process, the provider highlighted the actions they have taken to make improvements to the responsiveness of the service for their patient population.
• The GP survey patient over the last two years had mostly remained below the national average in relation to people’s experience accessing the service.
• The percentage of respondents to the GP patient survey who responded positively to how easy it was to get through to someone at their GP practice on the phone had remained below the national average in the last 2 years.
• The percentage of respondents to the GP patient survey who responded positively to the overall experience of making an appointment remained below the national average in the last 2 years.
• The percentage of respondents to the GP patient survey who were very satisfied or fairly satisfied with their GP practice times remained below the national average in the last 2 years.
• On the other hand, we also found the percentage of respondents to the GP patient survey who were satisfied with the appointment (or appointments) they were offered was above the national average in the last 2 years.

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

• Continue to improve patient access.
• Continue to use information from Family and Friends Test to identify themes and drive improvement.

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