We carried out an announced inspection and site visit at West Timperley Medical Centre on 31 October 2022. Overall, the practice is rated as Good.
Safe - Good
Effective - Good
Caring - Good (rating awarded at the inspection 19 December 2015)
Responsive – Good (rating awarded at the inspection 19 December 2015)
Well-led - Good
The practice was also rated Good at our previous inspection on 19 December 2015 and outstanding for the well led key question. At this inspection, we found that those areas previously regarded as outstanding practice were now embedded throughout the majority of GP practices. While the provider had maintained this good practice, the threshold to achieve an outstanding rating had not been reached.
The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for West Timperley Medical Centre on our website at www.cqc.org.uk
Why we carried out this inspection/review
We undertook this inspection as part of a selection of services rated good and outstanding who have not been inspected for five years or more.
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
- Feedback from staff using questionnaires
- 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 have rated this practice as Good overall.
We found that:
- The practice cared for patients in a way that kept them safe and protected them from avoidable harm, this included safeguarding and management of risk.
- 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.
- The practice adjusted how it delivered services to meet the needs of patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.
- The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centre care.
We saw areas of outstanding practice. These included:
- West Timperley Medical Centre were committed to ensuring they delivered safe and effective care. They encouraged all staff to undertake quality improvement work and the management and clinical team worked together to develop searches and identify potential cohorts of patients who may require extra care. One of the biggest areas recently developed was the heart failure work. Their new practice nurse had a clinical interest in heart failure. When they joined the practice they developed a new protocol of care for those patients and this was reviewed by the partners and they were given protected time each week to carry out this work. All the heart failure patients had now been reviewed and received an individual care plan which explained their risks and enabled them to contact the practice nurse whenever they may be deteriorating.
- They had identified that the systems in place for patient access could be better and were working with the NHS England Development team to see if there were better ways of working. They had already carried out interviews with different groups of staff and were considering alternatives to AskMyGp to review the efficacy of their appointment system.
Whilst we found no breaches of regulations, the provider should:
- Continue to work with patients to encourage the uptake of cervical screening.
- Check that all patients with hypothyroidism are receiving appropriate monitoring.
- Review historically retained tasks in the document system to ensure none have been missed.
- Continue with the plan to complete summarising of outstanding patient records.
- Remove and mitigate the risk of blinds in the practice with pull chords as discussed.
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 Hospitals and Interim Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services