Blandford Medical Centre

Background to this inspection

Updated 28 July 2017

Dr D A Williams & Partners which is also known as Blandford Medical Centre is part of Mid Essex Clinical Commissioning Group and is a large surgery in the town of Braintree Essex. Blandford Medical Centre provides general medical services to approximately 17,760 registered patients. The practice provides parking with an onsite car park. There are good transport links in the locality.

The practice operates from a single location: Mace Avenue, Braintree, Essex, CM7 2AE.

Services provided include: a range of clinics for long term conditions, health promotion and screening, childhood vaccinations and minor surgical procedures.
The practice have a dispensary within the building.
The practice has six GPs (three male and three female). Two of which were GP trainers that provide support for doctors who were training to become GPs.
The all-female nursing team consists of four prescribing nurses and one practice nurse.
The practice has one male and one female healthcare assistant.
The non-clinical team comprises of a practice manager, assistant practice manager and 20 reception and administrative staff.

The practice opens between 8am and 6.30pm Monday to Friday. Appointments are offered from 8am to 12.40pm and from 3pm to 5pm Monday to Friday. Emergency appointments are available from 12pm to 6pm daily.
On evening, weekends and bank holidays out of hours care is provided by Primecare, another healthcare provider. This can be accessed by patients dialling 111.
The practice has a comprehensive website providing information on opening times, appointments, services, staff and patient group information.
Braintree town is the seventh least deprived area of the population for Essex.

Overall inspection

Good

Updated 28 July 2017

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

On 25 August 2016 we carried out a comprehensive inspection at Dr D A Williams & Partners. Overall the practice was rated as requires improvement. The practice was found to be good in providing effective and caring services. However, they required improvement in providing safe, responsive and well-led services.

A requirement notice was issued to the provider for safe care and treatment and poor governance. The concerns related to infection control audits that were not in line with guidance, the system for acting on patient safety and medicine alerts was not effective, the learning from significant events was not routinely being discussed and learning had not been embedded into practice procedures and the practice did not have a system of quality improvement in place to assess and monitor the services provided or to act on high exception reporting. The full report for the August 2016 inspection can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Dr D A Williams & Partners on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

As a result, we carried out a focused inspection of the practice on 15 June 2017 to establish whether the required improvements had been met. We found adequate improvements had been made; overall the practice is rated as good.

Our key findings across all areas we inspected were as follows:

The practice had reviewed their data from the national GP patient survey and acted on patient suggestions to improve patient satisfaction.
The practice had appropriate policies and procedures in place that were reviewed annually.
The patients we spoke with on the day of the inspection said they found it difficult to book an appointment and contact the practice by telephone. However the practice had reviewed their telephone system to help improve patient satisfaction.
The practice had worked with their participation group to make improvements related to patient feedback.
Staff understood their roles and responsibilities and how these contributed directly to improving patient experiences of the service and the practices performance.
The practice had conducted an infection control audit which was monitored by the infection control lead who had received adequate training to carry out the role.
Patient Specific Directions (PSDs) and Patient Group Directions (PGDs) were accessible to relevant staff members and in line with national guidance.
The system for managing patient safety and medicine alerts was effective, appropriate action was taken and recorded.
The governance at the practice ensured that risks to patients and staff were identified and mitigated.
Exception reporting was assessed and monitored to improve performance.
Significant events were cascade to all staff members however learning from such events were not always documented.
The practice had identified 87 patients as a carer which was 0.5% of their patient list.
The business continuity plan was up to date and reviewed regularly.
Prescription forms for use in computers were recorded and tracked through the practice, however individual prescription pads were not being tracked.
All non-clinical staff received safeguarding training for children and vulnerable adults.
Staff were aware of patient confidentiality during private conversations.

Action the service SHOULD take to improve:

Continue to monitor and act upon patient satisfaction data.
Review process and methods for identification of carers and the system for recording this to enable support and advice to be offered to those that require it.
Ensure blank prescriptions are tracked in accordance with national guidance.
Ensure that the learning from significant events is recorded.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP)

Chief Inspector of General Practice