Updated 13 January 2017
Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice
In April 2016 a comprehensive inspection of Westfield Surgery was conducted. The practice was rated as requires improvement overall, specifically we found the practice required improvement for safe and well led services and was good for providing effective, caring and responsive care.
We found that the practice required improvement for the provision of safe services because improvements were needed in the way the practice assessed the risks to the health and safety of service users who were receiving care and treatment, specifically in relation to the control and monitoring of legionella and hazardous substances (legionella is a term for a particular bacterium which can contaminate water systems in buildings).
We also found that the practice required improvement for well led because improvements were needed to ensure staff had received essential training and appraisals, risk assessments needed to be completed and reviewed regularly and a system needed to be in place to monitor the security of blank prescriptions.
Westfield Surgery sent us an action plan that set out the changes they would make to improve these areas.
We carried out an announced focussed inspection of Westfield Surgery on 8 December 2016 to ensure the practice had made these changes and that the service was meeting regulations. At this inspection we rated the practice as good for providing safe and well led services. The overall rating for the practice is now good. For this reason we have only rated the location for the key questions to which this related. This report should be read in conjunction with the full inspection report of 7 April 2016. You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the 'all reports' link for Westfield Surgery on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
Our key findings were:
- The practice had processes in place to maintain and monitor the security of blank prescriptions.
- Risk assessments had been completed and policies implemented for legionella and hazardous substances.
- A business continuity plan was in place and other policies and risk assessments had been recently reviewed and updated.
- Recommended training had been undertaken by practice staff and staff appraisals had been undertaken.
- Lessons learnt from significant events and complaints were shared to drive improvement.
- Action had been taken to actively seek the views of service users.
Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP)
Chief Inspector of General Practice