We carried out a focused desktop review at Walkden Medical Practice on 23 April 2021. Overall, the practice is now rated good for providing ’safe’ services and remains rated ‘good’ overall.
Safe - Good
Effective - Good
Caring - Good
Responsive - Good
Well-led - Good
Following our previous inspection on 13 March 2019, the practice was rated Good overall and for key questions effective, caring, responsive and well-led but rated Requires Improvement for providing safe services:
The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Walkden Medical Practice on our website at www.cqc.org.uk
Why we carried out this review
This inspection was a focused desk top review carried out on 23 April 2021 to confirm that the practice had carried out its plan to meet the requirements in relation to those identified in our previous inspection on 13 March 2019. This report covers our findings in relation to
those requirements and also additional improvements made since our last inspection.
How we carried out the 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 and reviews differently.
This review was carried out in a way which enabled us to analyse information without spending time on site. This was with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements.
This included
- Requesting evidence from the provider
Our findings
We based our judgement of the quality of care at this service on a combination of:
- information from our ongoing monitoring of data about services and
- information from the provider.
We have rated this practice as Good overall with the key question safe now rated as Good.
We found that:
- The practice provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm.
- The practice introduced and improved systems and processes to keep patients safe. This included taking appropriate action on patient safety alerts and ensuring recruitment checks were documented when employing new staff members.
- The practice introduced a system where it had oversight of training completed by locum GPs.
- The practice had an audited system to dispose of out of date consumables.
- The practice formalised and documented staff appraisals.
- GPs attended regular vaccine and immunisation update training.
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