Workington Primary Care Centre has been rated as ‘Good’ in four areas, and ‘Outstanding’ in one area, following a comprehensive inspection by the CQC.
The report was published this month and follows an inspection at Workington Primary Care Centre on 26 April 2019.
Services for the population groups of older people and people with long term conditions were rated as outstanding.
In the CQC’s overall summary and rating they said: “We have rated this practice as good overall for four of the population groups, and as outstanding for the responsive domain and for the older people and long-term conditions population groups.”
One factor highlighted as outstanding practice was the Primary Care Centre’s impact on reducing pressures on other health services in the area, including the five Workington GP practices, A&E, and out of hours services.
Dr Phil Crosby, Medical Director of Workington Health said: “It’s great to see the evidence in the report of how the Primary Care Centre has reduced pressures on GP practices and other health services in the area.
“The Centre’s nurse practitioner home visiting service carried out home visits for over 500 patients in 2018/19 – this has been a huge help to GP Practices in the area.
“When other services in the area have experienced pressures, teams at the Primary Care Centre have responded to the needs of local patients by carrying out wound and vascular nurse appointments, and giving flu vaccinations to elderly patients with no means of accessing GP practice or local pharmacy.”
Over the past three years there has been a 1.9% reduction in patient attendances at A&E by patients from Workington.
The Centre was also praised for the way it has adapted to the needs of the local population, as it now offers services such as the Frail Elderly Assessment Team, wound and vascular nurses, and a nurse practitioner home visiting service.
Some key evidence of the impact of these services in 2018/19 were:
the Frail Elderly Assessment Team gave flu vaccinations to 445 elderly patients in care homes and sheltered accommodation who would not otherwise have been able to receive one
the wound and vascular service carried out 197 new patient appointments and 3847 follow up appointments for patients who were no longer eligible to be seen by the community nursing team
the nurse practitioner visiting service saved the local GP practices 541 appointments since October 2018
The report also detailed how the ECG and blood pressure monitoring service had reduced waiting times for patients from seven weeks to two weeks.
You can view the full report on the CQC website.
