Bexley Group Practice

Updated 6 February 2024

Bexley Group Practice is located at: 76-78 Upper Wickham Lane, Welling, DA16 3HQ

The practice has a branch surgery at: 24 Station Road, Belvedere, DA17 6JJ

The provider is registered with CQC to deliver the regulated activities; diagnostic and screening procedures, maternity and midwifery services, family planning and treatment of disease, disorder or injury. These are delivered from both sites.

The practice is situated within the South East London Integrated Care System (ICS) and delivers General Medical Services (GMS) to a patient population of about 13,250. This is part of a contract held with NHS England.

The practice is part of a wider network of GP practices: Clocktower Primary Care Network (PCN).

Information published by Office for Health Improvement and Disparities shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the seventh lowest decile (7 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 67.8% White, 14.1% Asian, 11.3% Black, 3.5% Mixed, and 3.3% Other.

The age distribution of the practice population closely mirrors the local and national averages.

There is a team of 5 GPs who provide cover at both practices. The practice has a team of 4 nurses who provide nurse led clinics for long-term conditions at both the main and the branch locations. The GPs are supported at the practice by a team of reception and administration staff. The practice manager and assistant practice manager are based at the main location to provide managerial oversight.

The practice is open between 8am to 6.30pm Monday to Friday. The main surgery is open from 8am to 7.30pm Tuesday to Thursday. The practice offers a range of appointment types including book on the day, telephone consultations and advance appointments.

Extended access is provided locally by the PCN, where late evening and weekend appointments are available. Out of hours services are accessed via NHS 111.

Updated 6 February 2024

We undertook a targeted assessment of the responsive key question at Bexley Group Practice. The rating for the responsive key question is Requires Improvement. As the other key questions were not reviewed during this assessment, the rating of good will be carried forward from the previous inspection and the overall rating of the service will remain Good.

Safe - not inspected, rating of good carried forward from previous inspection.

Effective - not inspected, rating of good carried forward from previous inspection.

Caring - not inspected, rating of good carried forward from previous inspection.

Responsive - requires improvement.

Well-led - not inspected, rating of good carried forward from previous inspection.

During the inspection process, the practice highlighted efforts they were making to improve access for their population. These had only recently been implemented so the effect of these efforts is not yet reflected in verified outcomes data. As such, the ratings for this inspection have not been impacted. However, we continue to monitor the data and where we see potential changes, we will follow these up with the practice.

Following our previous inspection on 20 March 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 Bexley Group Practice on our website at www.cqc.org.uk

Why we carried out this assessment

We carried out a targeted assessment of the responsive key question. Targeted assessments enable us to focus on certain key questions to explore particular aspects of care.

How we carried out the assessment

This assessment was carried out without a site visit

This included:

• Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing.
• Requesting evidence from the provider.

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 recognised and organised services to support patient’s needs.
• Complaints were used to drive improvement
• Patients reported difficulty accessing the practice by telephone and were not always satisfied with the practice’s appointment times, the appointments offered or the experience of making an appointment.
• The practice had responded to patient feedback in the GP patient survey by introducing a new telephone system. However, the effects of these efforts were not yet reflected in verified outcome data.

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

• Continue to collect patient feedback and take steps to improve access for all patients.

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