7, 8 and 10 September 2021
During a routine inspection
We carried out an announced inspection at Welling Medical Practice on 7 September 2021. Overall, the practice is rated as Requires improvement.
Set out the ratings for each key question
Safe - Requires improvement
Effective – Good
Caring - Requires improvement
Responsive - Requires improvement
Well-led - Good
Following our previous inspection on 28 July 2015, the practice was rated as Good overall and for four of the five key questions. We rated the practice as requires improvement for providing safe services. After the comprehensive inspection, the practice wrote to us to say what they would do to meet the legal requirements in relation to the breach of regulation 12(1)(2)(b)(d)(g)(h) Safe care and treatment of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. We undertook a desk-based focussed inspection on 1 April 2016 to check that they had followed their plan and confirmed that they now met the legal requirements.
The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Welling Medical Practice on our website at www.cqc.org.uk
Why we carried out this inspection
This inspection was a comprehensive inspection, as there had been organisational changes at the practice since our last inspection.
How we carried out the inspection/review
Throughout the pandemic CQC has continued to regulate and respond to risk. However, taking into account the circumstances arising as a result of the pandemic, and in order to reduce risk, we have conducted our inspections differently.
This inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to spend a minimum amount of time on site. This was with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements.
This included:
- Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing
- Completing clinical searches on the practice’s patient records system and discussing findings with the provider
- Reviewing patient records to identify issues and clarify actions taken by the provider
- Requesting evidence from the provider
- A short site visit
- Obtaining staff feedback via completed questionnaires
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 have rated this practice as Requires Improvement overall and for all population groups. The practice is rated Good for providing Effective and Well led services.
We found that:
- Patient feedback via the national GP patient survey showed the practice was scored poorly in several areas including experiences of making an appointment, interactions with staff, and overall experience of the GP practice.
- The practice adjusted how it delivered services to meet the needs of patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. They had moved to a digital first approach to accessing services, with patients being encouraged to complete an online consultation in the first instance. Other forms of access was available to patients who could not use the online consultation system.
- The practice was a training practice, and was led by a stable and established leadership team.
We found breaches of regulations. The provider must:
- Ensure care and treatment is provided in a safe way to patients
- Establish effective systems and processes to ensure good governance in accordance with the fundamental standards of care.
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