23 Aug 2019
During an inspection looking at part of the service
We carried out an announced focused inspection at Extra Care Central Gateshead on 23 August 2019. This was to check the practice had made the improvements we said they should, when we last inspected the practice in October 2018.
At the last inspection, we rated the practice as requires improvement for providing safe services. We said the provider should:
- Strengthen the arrangements to alert a patient’s own GP when a patient requires further investigation or referral to another service.
- Embed the information governance requirements for clinical staff into induction and information/guidance packs.
- Continue with plans to develop a more formal and effective channel of communication and engagement with clinical staff which includes dissemination of learning from complaints, significant events and clinical audits as well as implementation of best practice guidance.
At this inspection, we found that the provider had acted to address these areas.
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 rated this practice as good overall. (Previous rating October 2018 – Good).
We rated the practice as good for providing safe services because the practice had:
- Put a new policy was in place regarding the dissemination of information relating to referrals. Practices were now telephoned to inform them that their patients had been referred. We saw discharge summaries that had been sent to practices after patients had visited the service and these also included details of any referrals made;
- Put note on the service’s computer system which appeared when staff logged in to remind them of information governance requirements. We saw that the same information was also included in the staff induction pack. Staff had also completed information governance training since the last inspection;
- Put a system in place so that learning from matters such as significant events, complaints or clinical audit was shared with clinical staff via emails and the staff newsletter.
Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP
Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care