North Darnall Health Centre

Updated 7 September 2023

North Darnall Health Centre is located at 2 York Road, Sheffield, S9 5DH.

The provider is a provider at scale who took over the practice over 1 year ago and is registered with CQC to deliver the Regulated Activities; diagnostic and screening procedures, maternity and midwifery services, treatment of disease, disorder or injury and family planning.

The practice is situated within the South Yorkshire Integrated Care System (ICS) and delivers General Personal Medical Services (PMS) to a patient population of about 3,200 patients. This is part of a contract held with NHS England. The practice is also part of a wider Primary Care Network made up of local GP practices who provide shared services to their patients.

Information published by Public Health England shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the first lowest decile (1 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 25.5% Asian, 63.4% White, 5.4% Black, 2.4% Mixed and Other.

There is a clinical director who has oversight of all the providers’ location sites. There are 2 male GPs at this location and 1 regular locum female GP. There are 2 part time nurses, a healthcare assistant and they are assisted by support managers and a large administration and reception team. The team have the support of additional employed staff such as a physiotherapist, pharmacy support and a mental health worker. There is a governance structure in place with an operational team, senior management team and senior leadership team who report to the board of directors for the organisation.

The practice is open between 8am and 6pm Monday to Friday with the exception of Thursdays when the practice closes at 1pm and the phones are diverted to one of the provider’s other practices.

Weekend and evening appointments are offered at one of the satellite clinics in Sheffield, in partnership with other practices in the area. When the practice is closed, patient calls are automatically transferred to the Sheffield Out of Hours Service which is located at the Northern General Hospital.

Updated 7 September 2023

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at North Darnall Health Centre on 19 and 20 July 2023. Overall, the practice is rated as Good. The rating for each key question is:

Safe - Good

Effective – Good

Caring – Good

Responsive - Good

Well-led – Good

Why we carried out this inspection

This inspection was a comprehensive inspection of a new provider who took over the location in June 2022.

How we carried out the inspection

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 and telephone 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.
• Requesting staff to complete a short questionnaire.
• A short visit to the practice to review the premises and speak to staff.

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:

• 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. Clinical searches and medical records we reviewed mostly showed effective management and monitoring of patients with long-term conditions although there were some areas that required review.
• Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect.
• 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-centred care.

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

• Continue to improve uptake of the national screening programmes.
• Improve the medication review procedure and ensure all monitoring and medication risks are documented as part of the review.
• Continue with the work to improve the management of patients diagnosed with asthma with regard to the prescribing of rescue inhalers and access to steroid cards.
• Continue with the work commenced to improve the prescribing of hypnotic medication.
• Take steps to improve confidentiality at the reception desk.
• Improve the oversight of administration tasks on the clinical system and ensure they are actioned in a timely manner as per the practice protocol.

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