Archived: The Wedmore Practice

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We undertook a comprehensive inspection of The Wedmore Practice on 20 July 2016 under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. The practice was rated as Good overall, with the area of Safe rated as requires improvement. The full comprehensive report following the inspection on 20 July 2016 can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for The Wedmore Practice on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

This inspection was an announced focused follow-up inspection of The Wedmore Practice on 4 April 2017, to confirm that the practice had carried out their plan to meet the legal requirements in relation to the breaches in regulations that we identified in our previous inspection on 20 July 2016. This report covers our findings in relation to those requirements and also additional improvements made since our last inspection.

Overall the practice is rated as Good, with the area of Safe now rated as Good.

At the inspection 20 July 2016 the areas where the provider must make improvement were:

• The system and policy and procedure for monitoring the temperature of the refrigerators where medicines were stored such as vaccines must be reviewed so that maximum or minimum temperature changes that occurred were monitored to ensure vaccine viability thresholds were not breached.

• Practice staff must ensure there was recorded evidence that the emergency medicines were checked on a regular basis.

• There must be a system to ensure Patient Group Directions for the administration of medicines were signed for and agreed by the responsible GP and nursing staff before implementing.

The areas where the provider should make improvement were:

• Lessons were shared for significant events, but the partners should ensure this information was shared across all of the staff team so that they had awareness and could support any actions taken to improve safety in the practice.

• The practice should ensure that a member of staff was identified and trained to be the named lead for health and safety at the practice.

• The practice should ensure that there was a consistent approach to obtaining and retaining recruitment and employment information held in regard to staff employed at the practice.

• The provider should have a planned approach to ensuring that training or retraining in regard to the Mental Capacity Act 2005 took place.

Our key findings from this inspection, 4 April 2017, were as follows:

• The provider had improved the systems, policy and procedure for monitoring the temperature of the refrigerators where medicines such as vaccines were stored.

• The provider had implemented a system so that there is recorded evidence that the emergency medicines were checked on a regular basis.

• The provider had ensured there was a system to ensure Patient Group Directions for the administration of medicines were signed for and agreed by the responsible GP and nursing staff before implementation.

• Lessons were shared for significant events and information were shared across all of the staff team so that they could have an awareness and could support any actions taken to improve safety in the practice.

• The provider had identified a member of staff to be the named lead for health and safety at the practice. This person attended health and safety updates and sought external advice when required.

• The provider had ensured that there was a consistent approach to obtaining and retaining recruitment and employment information held in regard to staff employed at the practice.

• The provider had a planned approach to ensure that training or retraining in regard to the Mental Capacity Act 2005 was taking place.

However, there were also areas of practice where the provider needs to continue to make improvements.

Importantly, the provider should:

• Continue with the programme of implementing improvements such as electronic monitoring systems for ensuring the safe temperature of the refrigerators where medicines such as vaccines were stored.

• Review the system of the time period between checks on the emergency medicines to ensure that it is in line with current good practice.

• Continue with ensuring that the provider has access to an appropriately trained health and safety representative.

• The provider should continue to ensure that information regarding the training for mandatory and core subjects is obtained for the locums used at the practice.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice