Archived: Southampton Primary Care Ltd

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Southampton Primary Care Ltd on 10 October 2019 as part of our inspection programme.

This service is registered with Care Quality Commission (CQC) under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 in respect of some, but not all, of the services it provides. There are some general exemptions from regulation by CQC which relate to particular types of service and these are set out in The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014.

The chief executive officer is the registered manager. A registered manager is a person who is registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

We rated the practice as good for providing safe services because:

• There were clear systems and processes in place to keep people safe and safeguarded from abuse.
• Staff had the information they required in order to deliver safe holistic care to patients even when the clinician had not seen the patient previously.
• There were clear documented processes in place to record significant events and share learning from these.

We rated the practice as outstanding for providing effective services because:

• The provider (Southampton Primary Care Limited – SPCL) had engaged in a variety of innovative pilot programmes and undertaken quality reviews of the impact these had on the wider healthcare system. Impact to patients as a result of these projects included providing enhanced health care in patient homes, reducing the demand of home visits undertaken by GP practices, and a reduction in emergency admissions to hospital. The provider has expanded on this improvement since the pilots were undertaken.
• SPCL maintained strong links with other healthcare organisations and was able to provide additional support when other organisations were at capacity in order to ensure patients were able to get their healthcare needs met.

We rated the practice as good for providing caring services because:

• Staff helped patients to be involved in decisions about care and treatment particularly when undertaking the enhanced health in care homes services.
• Patients needs were taken into account and information was available in languages other than English when required.

We rated the practice as good for providing responsive services because:

• The provider had been commissioned to deliver enhanced access to primary care services across the geographical area of Southampton City serving a patient population of over 350,000.
• Hub working arrangements delivered by Southampton Primary Care Limited meant that patients had access to a range of services including home visiting when appropriate in order to meet the needs. All calls to book appointments came through a central booking system operating from head office location.

We rated the practice as outstanding for providing well-led services because:

• The culture of the practice and the way it was led and managed drove the delivery and improvement of high-quality, person-centred care.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP
Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care