The Care Quality Commission
  • Doctor
  • GP practice

Coleridge Medical Centre

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

Canaan Way, Ottery St Mary, Devon, EX11 1EQ (01404) 814447

Provided and run by:
Coleridge Medical Centre

All Inspections

25 April 2023

During a routine inspection

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Coleridge Medical Centre on 24 April 2023. Overall, the practice is rated as good.

Safe - good,
Effective - good,
Caring - good,
Responsive - good,
Well-led - good,

Following our previous inspection on 12June 2018, 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 Coleridge Medical Practice on our website at www.cqc.org.uk

Why we carried out this inspection
We carried out this inspection in line with our inspection priorities.

How we carried out the inspection

This inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to spend a minimum amount of time on site.

This included:
• Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing.
• Completing clinical searches on the practice’s patient records system (this was with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements).
• Reviewing patient records to identify issues and clarify actions taken by the provider.
• Requesting evidence from the provider.
• 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 found that:

  • Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
  • The practice had good links with community groups and worked in collaboration to promote local health promotion groups and signpost patients to appropriate services.
  • Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way by a variety of methods.
  • The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centre care.

However:

  • The practice should consider replacing carpet tiles with solid flooring in clinical areas.
  • Not all patients with learning disabilities had received an annual health check.
  • Patients having had more than one course of emergency steroids for asthma did not always have appropriate follow up reviews.
  • The practice did not ensure a consistent quality of medication reviews.
  • MHRA alerts were not always actioned in a timely manner.
  • Patient record summarising was not always completed in an appropriate timescale.
  • Strive to bring the percentage of persons eligible to have had cervical cancer screening to meet the national target of 80%
  • Staff should be reminded that computers with clinical software need to be locked when not in use.

We found 1 breach of regulations. The provider must:

  • Strive to bring the percentage of persons eligible to have had learning disability annual health checks higher.
  • Ensure patients who had more than one course of emergency steroids for asthma had appropriate follow up reviews.
  • Ensure patient record summarising is completed within a reasonable timescale.
  • Ensure all patient facing staff were trained to an appropriate safeguarding level.


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

  • Replace carpet tiles with solid flooring in clinical areas
  • Ensure all patient facing staff were trained to the appropriate safeguarding level.
  • Ensure MHRA Alerts were actioned in a timely manner.
  • Strive to bring the percentage of persons eligible to have had cervical cancer screening to meet the national target of 80%


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

12 June 2018

During a routine inspection

This practice is rated as Good overall. (Previous inspection April 2015 – Good)

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? – Good

Are services effective? – Good

Are services caring? – Good

Are services responsive? – Good

Are services well-led? - Good

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Coleridge Medical Centre on 12 June 2018 as part of our inspection programme.

At this inspection we found:

  • The practice had clear systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. When incidents did happen, the practice learned from them and improved their processes.
  • The practice routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided. It ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence-based guidelines.
  • Staff involved and treated patients with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
  • Patients found the appointment system easy to use and reported that they were able to access care when they needed it.
  • There was a strong focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels of the organisation.

We saw one area of outstanding practice:

The practice had instigated a scheme whereby patients were able to present a flu vaccination voucher at any appointment and receive their flu vaccination. This saved patients the inconvenience of having to attend a specific flu vaccination clinic. An audit of this scheme found that 1,256 vouchers had been used by patients to obtain their vaccination. This represented an increase of approximately 4% on the previous year.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP
Chief Inspector of General Practice

21/04/2015

During a routine inspection

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Coleridge Medical Practice on 21 April 2015.

Overall the practice is rated as good.

Specifically, we found the practice to be good for providing safe, well-led, effective, caring and responsive services. It was also good for providing services for the older people, people with long term conditions, people whose circumstances may make them vulnerable, working age people and outstanding for young people and families.

Our key findings across all the areas we inspected were as follows:

  • Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns, and to report incidents and near misses. Information about safety was recorded, monitored, appropriately reviewed and addressed.
  • Risks to patients were assessed and well managed.
  • Patients’ needs were assessed and care was planned and delivered following best practice guidance. Staff had received training appropriate to their roles and any further training needs had been identified and planned.
  • Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.
  • Information about services and how to complain was available and easy to understand.
  • Patients said they found it easy to make an appointment with a named GP and that there was continuity of care, with urgent appointments available the same day.
  • The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
  • There was a clear leadership structure and staff felt supported by management. The practice proactively sought feedback from staff and patients, which it acted on.

We saw several areas of outstanding practice including:

  • The practice encouraged young people from the local secondary school to be part of the patient participation group (PPG). Teenhealth Group at Kings School had two representatives from each year group who promoted teenage health around the school. Teenhealth sent representatives to the PPG (four students attended last year). They attended meetings to maintain links with the whole PPG group and to encourage ideas about how the practice can work together with them on health issues and health topics.
  • The practice were proactive in supporting carers. They put together a small team of staff to raise the profile of carers and the support available to them. This group comprised of a GP lead, practice nurses, healthcare assistants and an administrator. The group met often to discuss issues and share ideas. Coleridge Medical Centre had been asked to share its experience with other practices and encouraged other practices to nominate an enthusiastic GP lead and form a practice carers team. The practice had received an award from the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) for this work.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice