The Grove Medical Centre

Background to this inspection

Updated 18 September 2017

The Grove Medical Centre is located in a converted house within a residential area of East London, where there are good transport links, disabled parking bays and parking bays that are free for 30 minutes. The practice is a part of Waltham Forest Clinical Commissioning Group.

There are 6,200 patients registered at the practice.

The practice has two male and one female GP partners completing 22.5 sessions per week. Agency practice nurses provide 8 sessions per week and one female health care assistant provides one session per week. The practice has a practice manager and 10 reception/administration staff members.

The practice is an undergraduate teaching practice for second year through to final year medical students. At the time of the inspection there were no students (the last two having left in July) but two were due to start on the 23 August 2017.

The practice operates under a Personal Medical Services Contract (PMS); (a locally agreed alternative to the standard GMS contract used when services are agreed locally with a practice which may include additional services beyond the standard contract).

The practice is open Monday to Friday between 8:15am and 6:30pm; phone lines are open from 8:30am. Appointment times are as follows:

Monday 8:30am to12:00pm and 2:00pm to 8:15pm
Tuesday 8:30am to 11:40am and 2:20pm to 6:00pm
Wednesday 8:30am to 11:30am and 2:20pm to 6:00pm
Thursday 8:30am to 11:15am
Friday 8:30am to 12:00pm and 1:30pm to 6:00pm

The locally agreed out of hours provider covers calls made to the practice whilst it is closed. The Grove Medical Centre operates regulated activities from one location and is registered with the Care Quality Commission to provide surgical procedures, diagnostic and screening procedures, treatment of disease, disorder or injury, family planning and maternity and midwifery services.

Overall inspection

Good

Updated 18 September 2017

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at The Grove Medical Centre on 25 August 2016. The overall rating for the practice was requires improvement. Specifically they were rated as requires improvement for safe, caring and well-led, and good for effective and responsive. The full comprehensive report on the August 2016 inspection can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for The Grove Medical Centre on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

This inspection was an announced focused inspection carried out on 2 August 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 25 August 2016. This report covers our findings in relation to those requirements and also additional improvements made since our last inspection.

Overall the practice is now rated as good and the provision of safe, caring and well-led services are now also rated good.

Our key findings were as follows:

The recruitment process for all staff had been reviewed and all necessary employment checks were now being carried out.
Robust checks were now in place in accordance with requirements noted in the Legionella risk assessment.
Information was available to advise patients on how to make a complaint.
Complaints were now being investigated and learning outcomes shared with all relevant staff.
Fire training had now been competed by staff at a level appropriate to their role.
A comprehensive and up to date business continuity plan was now in place.
Carers were now being actively identified and supported where necessary.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP)

Chief Inspector of General Practice