Archived: Princes Park Medical Centre

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Princes Park Medical Centre on 10 January 2020 as part of our inspection programme. This was the practices first rated inspection since the provider registered with CQC in February 2019.

This inspection looked at the following key questions:

• Safe
• Effective
• Caring
• Responsive
• Well-led

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 requires improvement for safe, responsive and well-led and for all the population groups. We have rated them as good for effective and caring.

We found that:

• The systems and processes to keep patients safe required improvement. For example, the practice did not have an effective system for monitoring patients on high risk medicines and there were gaps in recruitment checks for some staff.
• The provider of this service had been in operation since February 2019, a few weeks prior to the end of the published QOF year. There was an action plan to address areas of poor performance that had been implemented since November 2019.
• The uptake for cervical screening and childhood immunisations for one year olds were below average.
• Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect. However, patient satisfaction was below average, and the practice did not have a clear plan of action on how to improve this.
• The process for dealing with complaints did not include clear records of investigation, learning and improvement.
• The governance systems for the safe and effective management of services required improvement.

The areas where the provider must make improvements are:

• Ensure that care and treatment is provided in a safe way.
• Establish effective systems and processes to ensure good governance in accordance with the fundamental standards of care.
• Ensure recruitment procedures are established and operated effectively to ensure only fit and proper persons are employed.

The provider should:

• Review and improve the uptake of cervical screening and the childhood immunisation programme.
• Continue to take action to improve cancer care reviews.
• Review and continue to monitor the effectiveness of quality improvement activities, with a view to improving processes.
• Update the whistleblowing policy in line with NHS guidance and identify a Freedom to Speak Up Guardian.
• Continue to work towards establishing an effective patient participation group.

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