22 June 2022
During an inspection looking at part of the service
We carried out an announced focused review at The Palms Medical Centre on 22 June 2022 Overall, the practice is rated as Good.
Set out the ratings for each key question
Safe - Good
Effective - Good
Caring - Good
Responsive – Requires Improvement
Well-led - Good
We carried out an announced focused inspection at The Palms Medical Centre on 20 April 2021. The overall rating for the practice was good, with the exception of key question responsive which was rated requires improvement.
The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for The Palms Medical Centre on our website at www.cqc.org.uk
Why we carried out this review
This review was a focused follow-up review of information without undertaking a site visit inspection to follow up on:
- Progress made against ‘the area where the provider should make improvement’ identified in previous 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 reviews differently.
This review 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:
- Requesting evidence from the provider
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.
- information from the provider, patients, the public and other organisations.
This practice is rated as Good overall, with key question responsive remaining rated as requires improvement.
We found that:
- The practice provided care in a way that allowed for a range of professional to address patient’s needs.
- Limited improvement in patient satisfaction levels as evidenced in the most recent GP Patient Survey results. The practice results for providing responsive services continued to be significantly below national average scores, in particular with regards to patients’ attempting to access the practice by telephone.
- Feedback left for practice was mixed. Online feedback about the practice was mainly negative.
We found one breach of regulations. The provider must:
- Establish effective care systems and process 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