We carried out an announced focussed inspection at Oldbury Health Centre on 23 October 2019 as part of our inspection programme.
We carried out an inspection of this service following our annual review of the information available to us including information provided by the practice. Our review indicated that there may have been a significant change to the quality of care provided since the last inspection.
This inspection focused on the following key questions: Effective and Well-led.
Because of the assurance received from our review of information we carried forward the rating for the following key questions: Safe, Caring and Responsive.
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 requires improvement for providing effective services and the population groups people with long term conditions, working age people and those recently retired and people experiencing poor mental health (including people with dementia) because:
We found that:
- The practice continued to have higher exception reporting rates than local and national averages. The clinical team were aware of their high exception reporting rates and no improvements had been seen since the previous inspection. We were told the practice planned on implementing personalised care plans for all patients and to further strengthen the system for patients who failed to attend their appointments.
- On reviewing a sample of patients records on high risk medicines we found they had not received the appropriate monitoring. Following the inspection, we received an updated policy to ensure recommended guidelines were implemented in the management of patients.
- Cancer screening targets for cervical screening were below local and national averages.
We rated the practice as good for well led services because:
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Services were tailored to meet the needs of individual patients. They were delivered in a flexible way that ensured choice and continuity of care.
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All opportunities for learning from internal and external incidents were maximised. All learning was shared with staff regularly.
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Leaders demonstrated they had the capacity and skills to deliver high quality, sustainable care.
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There was effective leadership at all levels which supported innovation, implementation of processes and the continuous monitoring of patient care.
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The practice had some emergency medicines available, but these did not cover all the recommended medicines for general practice. The practice had risk assessed one medicine that they did not stock and had made an informed clinical decision not to stock the medicine, however following the inspection the practice reviewed this decision and obtained a small supply. The second recommended medicine unavailable, the practice attributed this to a national shortage. Following the inspection the practice assured us they had subsequently obtained a supply of the medicine.
The areas where the provider should make improvements are:
- Continue to encourage patients to attend cervical screening appointments.
- Review current processes for exception reporting to ensure they are appropriate for each patient.
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