Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice
Heathcote Medical Centre was previously inspected in December 2015 and was rated good in all domains and overall.
At this inspection in January 2018 the practice is rated as Good in all domains and overall.
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
As part of our inspection process, we also look at the quality of care for specific population groups. The population groups are rated as:
Older People – Good
People with long-term conditions – Good
Families, children and young people – Good
Working age people (including those recently retired and students – Good
People whose circumstances may make them vulnerable – Good
People experiencing poor mental health (including people with dementia) - Good
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Heathcote Medical Centre on 17 January 2018 under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. The inspection was planned to check whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.
At this inspection we found:
- The practice had clear systems to manage risk, including risk assessments, 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.
- Staff were supported in personal development and training and received regular appraisal.
- The practice had accessible facilities and was equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
- Patients found the appointment system easy to use and reported that they were able to access care when they needed it. However, the patient survey showed lower than average results for the question ‘how easy is it to get through to someone at your GP surgery on the phone’. We explored this with the surgery and found that the surgery was putting measures in place to improve patient satisfaction.
- The practice ensured patients had good access to care by offering extended hours surgeries, and telephone consultations, as well as offering appointment booking on the practice website.
- The practice had several GPs who were on maternity leave and to provide continuity of care they had employed long term locums to cover their patients.
- There was a strong focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels of the organisation.
The areas where the provider should make improvements are:
- Consider ways to identify and support more patients who are carers.
- Continue to review ways to improve patient satisfaction when contacting the practice.
- Consider ways to identify when risk assessments are due.
- Review the recording of information for those patients requiring additional care by using registers and centrally recording information.
Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP)
Chief Inspector of General Practice