Dr Pritpal Bath Also known as Dr PS Bath

Updated 10 August 2023

Dr Pritpal Bath, is also known as The Ashcroft Practice, and is part of the Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes Integrated Care Board. The practice holds a General Medical Services (GMS) contract for providing services, which is a nationally agreed contract between general practices and NHS England for delivering general medical services to local communities. The practice is a member of a local Primary Care Network (PCN) and is one of 4 GP practices within this network.

The GP practice is registered with the Care Quality Commission under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 to provide the following regulated activities:

• Diagnostic and screening procedures
• Family planning
• Midwifery and maternity services
• Treatment of disease, disorder or injury.

The practice serves a population of 4,997 patients. Information published by Public Health England shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the sixth lowest decile (six of 10). The lower the decile, the more deprived the practice population is relative to others. According to the latest available data, the ethnic make-up of the practice area is 78% White, 11% Asian, 7% Black, 3% Mixed and 1% Other.

The clinical team consists of one male Principal GP, a prescribing nurse practitioner, a regular nurse locum and a healthcare assistant. Pharmacy technicians from the local PCN attend the practice weekly. The practice team is led by a business manager and a practice manager and they are supported by 1 medical secretary and 6 reception/administration staff members.

Dr Pritpal Bath is open between 8am and 6.30pm Monday to Friday. Extended hours are provided by the practice every Tuesday between 6.30pm and 8pm. The practice offers a range of appointment types including book on the day, telephone consultations and advance appointments.

Extended access is provided locally by the PCN and additional appointments are available every weekday between 6.30pm and 8pm and between 9am and 5pm on Saturdays at local GP practices within the PCN network. Out of hours services are provided by Herts Urgent Care.

Updated 10 August 2023

We carried out an announced inspection at Dr Pritpal Bath on 21 July 2022. Overall, the practice is rated as good.

Safe - requires improvement

Effective - good

Caring - good

Responsive - good

Well-led - good

Following our previous inspection on 21 July 2022, the practice was rated inadequate overall and inadequate for the safe and well-led key questions and requires improvement for providing effective services. The practice was placed into special measures. As a result of the concerns identified during our inspection in July 2022, we issued a Section 29 warning notice in relation to a breach of Regulation 12 Safe Care and Treatment.

We undertook a focused inspection on 6 October 2022 to check that the practice had addressed the issues in the warning notice. During our inspection in October 2022 we found that the requirements of the warning notice had been met.

The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Dr Pritpal Bath on our website at www.cqc.org.uk

Why we carried out this inspection

We carried out this announced comprehensive inspection to follow up breaches of regulation from our previous inspection in July 2022.

We inspected the safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led key questions following a period of special measures, and followed up on breaches of regulations and ‘shoulds’ identified in our previous inspection in July 2022.

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 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 systems and processes to keep people safe were not effective across all areas.
• Appropriate monitoring of standards of cleanliness and hygiene were being met.
• There were adequate systems to assess, monitor and manage risks to patient safety.
• Systems for the appropriate and safe use of medicines, including medicines optimisation were effective in most cases.
• There was a consistent approach towards managing and learning from incidents.
• Patients’ needs were assessed, and care and treatment was delivered in line with care pathways in most cases.
• There was a programme of quality improvement activity.
• The practice was able to demonstrate that staff had the skills, knowledge and experience to carry out their roles.
• 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.
• Staff were consistent and proactive in helping patients to live healthier lives.
• People were able to access care and treatment in a timely way.
• Leaders had sufficient risk management and governance arrangements to ensure safe, high quality and sustainable care was delivered.
• The practice involved the public, staff and external partners to sustain high quality and sustainable care.
• The practice had made significant improvements across the majority of the practice in response to our previous inspection.
• The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centre care.

Whilst we found no breaches of regulations, the provider should:

• Take action to regularly audit the looked after children register.
• Embed the changes made to ensure test results are routinely recorded in the patient record.
• Take action to improve the system of auditing previous safety alerts.
• Take action to improve the documentation of care and treatment for patients with long term conditions and potential missed diagnosis is followed up appropriately.
• Improve the uptake of cervical cancer screening.
• Take action to keep the carers’ register up-to-date.

I am taking this service out of special measures. This recognises the significant improvements made to the quality of care provided by this service. We encourage the practice to sustain and embed the improvements.

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