Altrincham Medical Practice

Updated 22 December 2022

Altrincham Medical Practice is located in Trafford, Greater Manchester at:

Lloyd House
7 Lloyd Street
Altrincham
WA14 2DD

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

The practice is situated within the Trafford locality of the Greater Manchester Integrated Care Board and is part of Altrincham Healthcare Alliance. It delivers General Medical Services (GMS) to a patient population of approximately 8,100 patients. This is part of a contract held with NHS England.

The practice is part of a wider network of GP practices in the Trafford South area involving five other GP practices and a patient population of around 40,000 patients.

Information published by Public Health England shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the highest decile which is ten. The higher the decile, the least deprived the practice population is relative to others.

According to the latest available data, the ethnic make-up of the practice area is 91% white British, 5% Asian, 4% Other.

There is a team of three part time GP partners and four part time salaried GPs who provide cover at the practice. They are supported by two practice nurses and a healthcare practitioner. They also have the support of clinical pharmacists employed by the Primary Care Network as well as first contact practitioners and social prescribers. The practice is soon to be involved in the education and training of junior doctors. All junior staff will work under the close guidance of the GP team.

The medical and nursing teams are supported at the practice by a team of reception/administration staff. There is a practice manager with oversight of the day to day running of the practice and a deputy manager who supports them.

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

The local Primary Care Network deliver increased evening and weekend appointments for the patients of all five practices. From 1 October 2022, the number of pre-bookable and routine appointments available have been doubled and a phlebotomy clinic is also offered on a Sunday morning. Appointments include cervical screening, childhood vaccination clinics and health checks.

Out of hours services are provided by Mastercall.

Updated 22 December 2022

We carried out an announced inspection and site visit at Altrincham Medical Practice on 17 November 2022. Overall, the practice is rated as Good.

Safe - Good

Effective - Good

Caring - Good (rating awarded at the inspection 10 December 2015)

Responsive – Good (rating awarded at the inspection 10 December 2015)

Well-led - Good

The practice was also rated Good at our previous inspection on 10 December 2015 and outstanding for the well led key question. At this inspection, we found that those areas previously regarded as outstanding practice were now embedded throughout the majority of GP practices. While the provider had maintained this good practice, the threshold to achieve an outstanding rating had not been reached.

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

Why we carried out this inspection

We undertook this inspection as part of a selection of services rated good and outstanding who have not been inspected for five years or more.

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 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
• Feedback from staff using questionnaires
• A short site visit

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 have rated this practice as Good overall.

We found that:

• The practice cared for patients in a way that kept them safe and protected them from avoidable harm, this included safeguarding and management of risk.
• Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs.
• Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
• The practice adjusted how it delivered services to meet the needs of patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. 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-centre care.

Whilst we found no breaches of regulations. However the provider should:

• Continue with the plan to complete summarising of outstanding patient records.
• Review personnel files so that the documentation retained for each person is consistent.
• Continue to work on ways to improve cervical screening uptake.

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 Hospitals and Interim Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services