Irchester Surgery had been inspected previously on the following dates: -
14 December 2018 under the comprehensive inspection programme. The practice was rated as Good overall with a Requires Improvement for providing a responsive service and for all the population groups. A breach of legal requirements was found in relation to governance arrangements within the practice. A requirement notice was issued which required them to submit an action plan on how they were going to meet this requirement.
We carried out an announced focussed inspection at Irchester Surgery on 1 May 2019 as part of our inspection programme. As part of the Care Quality Commission annual regulatory review we inspected the domain areas of, effective, responsive and well led and utilised information from our previous inspection findings for the domain areas of safe and caring.
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 have rated this practice as good overall.
We rated the practice as Good for providing Effective and Well-led services because we found
- Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs.
- Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
- The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centre care.
We rated the practice as requires improvement for providing a responsive service and all population groups because:
- The findings of the national GP patient survey and CQC comments cards indicated that patients could not always access care and treatment in a timely way. The practice had taken steps to address this but at the time of our inspection there was insufficient data to measure the effectiveness. Dissatisfaction was still expressed in getting through to the practice by telephone and access to appointments.
The areas where the provider should make improvements are:
- Continue to monitor and improve patient satisfaction in respect of access to the service, in particular, the improvement of telephone access and appointments.
- Continue to monitor the training. development and clinical supervision of all staff.
- Continue to monitor confidentiality at the reception area.
- Consider carrying out an audit of minor surgery to ensure consent is being obtained and recorded.
Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.
Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP
Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care