Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection of Hampton Medical Centre on 17 March 2016. The practice was rated as requires improvement overall. Breaches of legal requirements were found relating to the Safe and Responsive domains. After the comprehensive inspection, the practice submitted an action plan, outlining what they would do to meet the legal requirements in relation to the breaches of regulation 12 (Safe care and treatment) and 17 (Good governance) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014.
During the comprehensive inspection we found that the practice had failed to ensure that the risks to patients were being managed with regards to infection control and that the practice had failed to act on patient feedback in order to improve their service. We also identified areas where improvements should be made, which included ensuring that staff were acting on computer system safety alerts, advertising the availability of translation services to patients, and improving their complaints process.
We undertook this focussed desk-based inspection on 26 January 2017 to check that the practice had followed their plan and to confirm that they now met the legal requirements. This report covers our findings in relation to those requirements. You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Hampton Medical Centre on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
Following the focussed inspection, we found the practice to be good for providing safe services. The practice had made some improvements in providing responsive services but there remained areas relating to patient satisfaction which had not been fully addressed and therefore they remain rated as requires improvement for providing responsive service. Following the follow-up inspection, they are rated as good overall.
Our key findings were as follows:
- The practice had effective processes in place to control risks relating to infection control. Staff with specific infection control responsibilities had sufficient time resource to perform this role.
- All staff had completed training in order to maintain up to date skills and knowledge relevant to their role.
- The practice had considered patient feedback from the NHS GP Patient Survey, and had plans in place to address areas where they had scored below average. Their achievement relating to patient satisfaction with telephone access to the surgery and the surgery opening hours had improved since the previous inspection, but was still below average. Their achievement for the proportion of patients who said they were able to see the GP of their choice had not improved and remained significantly below average (15% compared to a local and national average of 59%).
- The practice’s computer system displayed prescribing alerts and alerted GPs to combinations of medicines which should not be prescribed together. The practice had an ongoing programme of audit to ensure that their prescribing of these medicines was appropriate.
- The practice had translation services available, and this was advertised to patients in the waiting area.
- The practice recorded both verbal and written complaints received, and provided patients with complete and accurate information about the NHS complaints procedure.
The areas where the provider must make improvement are:
- They must take action to address areas of below average patient satisfaction with the service.
Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP
Chief Inspector of General Practice