Archived: Highparks Medical Practice

Updated 23 July 2015

Highcliffe Medical Centre and Cliffe Surgery provide primary medical services Monday to Friday from 8am to 6pm each week and operates extended opening hours from 7am on a Thursday and until 8pm on Tuesday evenings. The practice is situated in Higham Kent with a branch surgery in Cliffe and provides a service to approximately 5,300 patients in the locality across the two practices.

Routine health care and clinical services are offered at the practice, led and provided by the nursing team. There are a range of patient population groups that use the practice which holds a general medical services (GMS) contract with the Medway area clinical commissioning group (CCG). The practice does not provide out of hours services and information is available to patients about how to contact the local out of hour’s services provider.

The practice has three male and one female GP partners as well as one male and two female registrar GPs. There are two female practice nurses and two health care assistants, both female. The practice has a number of administration / reception and secretarial staff as well as a practice manager.

The practice has more patients in the working age group than the local and national average and a higher number of older patients over the age of 65. The number of patients recognised as suffering deprivation is lower than the local and national average. The practice supports a significantly higher number of patients who have a caring responsibility than the national average.

Services are delivered from:

Highcliffe Medical Practice

Higham Surgery

Hermitage Road,

Higham

Rochester

Kent

ME3 7DB

And:

Cliffe Surgery

Millcroft Road

Cliffe

Rochester,

Kent

ME3 7QN

Updated 23 July 2015

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Highcliffe Medical Practice on 5 November 2014. During the inspection we gathered information from a variety of sources. For example, we spoke with patients, members of the patient participation group (PPG), interviewed staff of all levels and checked that the right systems and processes were in place.

Overall the practice was rated as good. This is because we found the practice to be good for providing well-led, effective, caring, responsive and safe services. It was also good for providing services for all patient population groups.

Our key findings were as follows:

• The practice was clean and patients told us that they had no concerns with the cleanliness of the practice

• Patients were happy with the care treatment and support they had received. Patients told us they had been involved and felt included in decisions about their care, treatment and support at the practice.

• Patients were happy with the current appointment system and said it was easy to obtain an appointment when they needed one and they were able to get through on the telephone.

• The practice engaged patients and staff sufficiently in the operation of the service or ensured that staff had received appropriate learning and development opportunities to enable them to provide effective care, treatment and support to patients.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice