We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Oswald Medical Centre between 13 and 15 December 2022. Overall, the practice is rated as good.
The ratings for each of the key questions are as follows:
Safe - Good
Effective – Good
Caring – Good
Responsive – Good
Well-led – Good
Why we carried out this inspection
This inspection was carried out due to new registration in June 2021 to provide the location with a rating.
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:
- The practice prioritised safe, care and treatment, the provider identified and addressed risks promptly.
- Care and treatment were mostly effective, with a broad range of monitoring and quality improvement taking place to improve patient outcomes, though further work was required to fully embed this work and demonstrate improved patient outcomes.
- Patients identified as at the end of their lives had been identified, and additional support was in place for them and their families. However, records we sampled did not provide assurance that national guidance was followed in relation to advance decisions to decline cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
- All staff and GPs cared for patients, privacy, dignity and compassion were evident in the approach to care.
- The practice team had introduced a scheme to identify vulnerable patients, provide additional support and facilitate prompt access to appointments. There were currently 2,476 patients identified under this scheme.
- GP partners supported medical students, funded staff development courses and regularly provided skills development sessions for administrative and clinical staff.
- The practice sought innovative ways to engage with patients through social media and was introducing a new “friends of Oswald Medical Practice” scheme as the patient engagement group had lost momentum during the covid-19 pandemic.
- The practice used feedback from patient comments and surveys to help make improvements to care, which included buying a new telephony system, changing appointment booking, making more staff available to answer phones in the morning and making some appointments bookable by the text messaging system.
- The GP partners had purchased their premises and had solar panels and batteries installed in the new site, to improve sustainability.
- Shared learning and continuous improvement were embedded throughout the practice.
- The provider considered the needs of their population, implemented pilots and innovative solutions to improve care and treatment for their patients.
We found no breaches of regulations.
We found areas where the provider should continue to make improvements, the provider should:
- Maintain focus on childhood immunisations and cervical screening to meet national and world health organisation targets.
- Implement formal recorded supervision for advanced nurse practitioners and non-medical prescribers.
- Review systems to monitor patient safety alerts to include historic alerts.
- Fully document discussions regarding advanced decisions to decline cardiopulmonary resuscitation in line with national guidance.
- Liaise with partners to improve processes for sharing copies of advance decisions for every patient identified as having an advance decision to decline cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
- Continue to seek and act on patient feedback to continually improve the service and patient satisfaction.
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 Hospitals and Interim Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services