Village Medical Centre

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Village Medical Centre on 27 July 2023. The practice also has a branch practice at Jubilee Health Centre, the branch was not visited during the inspection. Overall, the practice is rated as requires improvement.

Safe - requires improvement

Effective - requires improvement

Caring - good

Responsive – requires improvement

Well-led – requires improvement

Why we carried out this inspection

We carried out this inspection in line with our inspection priorities. This was a new registration and the practice had not been inspected previously under this provider.

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 clinical 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:

• The practice had a system in place for the actioning of safety alerts, however this needed strengthening to ensure all alerts were acted on in a timely manner to mitigate risk.
• The management of patients’ medicines required improvements to ensure the appropriate monitoring was in place.
• The process for reviewing patients with long term conditions needed improvement to ensure all patients received the appropriate reviews.
• The process for sharing information with the wider practice team needed to be formalised to ensure all staff were included in the sharing of learning outcomes.
• The practice had increased the number of clinical staff to improve the services provided, however could not demonstrate that patient satisfaction with access had significantly improved.
• The practice had clear processes in place to ensure safeguarding concerns were acted on promptly that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm.
• Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.

We found breaches of regulations. The provider must:

• Ensure care and treatment is provided in a safe way to patients.
• Establish effective systems and processes to ensure good governance in accordance with the fundamental standards of care.

The provider should:

• Continue to improve on cancer screening and immunisation targets.
• Take action to share information with the wider practice team.

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