Upton Group Practice

Background to this inspection

Updated 21 February 2017

Upton Group Practice is located in Wirral, Cheshire. There were 7961patients on the practice register at the time of our inspection. The practice is situated in a residential area with a high number of patients being 65 years and over.

The practice has four GP partners, two male and two female, two female salaried GPs, three practice nurses, a practice manager and a number of administration and reception staff. The practice is a training practice for trainee GPs.

The practice is open between 8.30am and 6.30pm Monday to Friday. There are also arrangements to ensure patients receive urgent medical assistance when the practice is closed. Patients who require GP services outside of normal practice opening hours are asked to contact the NHS 111 service to obtain healthcare advice or treatment.

The practice has a General Medical Services (GMS) contract and has enhanced services contracts which include childhood vaccinations.

Overall inspection

Good

Updated 21 February 2017

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We previously carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Upton Group Practice on 21 July 2016. The overall rating for the practice was requires improvement. The full comprehensive report on the inspection carried out on 21 July 2016 can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Upton Group Practice on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

This inspection was an announced focused inspection carried out on 3 February 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 21 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 now rated as good.

Our key findings were as follows:

The practice had addressed the issues identified during the previous inspection.
The practice no longer had any controlled drugs.
The practice had revised its safeguarding protocols and now had its own additional internal safeguarding meetings and kept appropriate records to improve the management of any safeguarding concerns.

In addition, the practice had made the following improvements:

The implementation of continuous audit for patients on high risk medications. The practice was also part of a local pilot scheme for repeat prescribing to reduce unnecessary medications being prescribed to patients.
There was a revised significant event protocol. New significant events and any previous actions were discussed as a standing agenda item at staff meetings.
There was a new complaints process, in which all complaints were discussed at staff meetings. Any complaints which were highlighted as a significant event would be analysed appropriately.
The practice had updated its website in part to improve how the practice captured patient feedback.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP)

Chief Inspector of General Practice