Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

This is a focused desk top review of evidence supplied by Arnold Medical Centre for one area within the key question safe.

We found the practice to be good in providing safe services. Overall, the practice is rated as good.

The practice was previously inspected on 13 May 2016. The inspection was a comprehensive inspection under the Health and Social Care Act 2008. At that inspection, the practice was rated good overall. However, within the key question safe, safe care and treatment was identified as requires improvement, as the practice was not meeting the legislation at that time; Regulation 12 HSCA (RA) Regulations 2014 Safe care and treatment.

The practice has submitted to CQC, a range of documents which demonstrate they are now meeting the requirements of Regulation 12 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Arnold Medical Centre on 13 May 2016. Overall the practice is rated as good.

Our key findings across all the areas we inspected were as follows:

• There was an open and transparent approach to safety and an effective system in place for reporting and recording significant events.
• Risks to patients were assessed and well managed with the exception of those relating to some areas of medicines management.
• Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance. Staff had been trained to provide them with the skills, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care and treatment.
• Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.
• Information about services and how to complain was available and easy to understand. Improvements were made to the quality of care as a result of complaints and concerns.
• Patients said they found it easy to make an appointment with a named GP and there was continuity of care, with urgent appointments available the same day.
• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
• There was a clear leadership structure and staff felt supported by management. The practice proactively sought feedback from staff and patients, which it acted on.
• The provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the duty of candour.

We saw two areas of outstanding practice:

• The practice proactively screened patients at influenza clinics, taking patient pulses to determine whether they were at risk of suffering from atrial fibrillation (a heart condition). Several patients had been identified with the condition in this way.
• The practice reviewed referrals to other services and patient attendances at local accident and emergency services. As a result, the practice had provided appointments with GPs at lunchtimes and had introduced telephone appointments and a triage system run by GPs. We saw evidence that for the period of April 2015 to March 2016 the practice had the lowest patient attendance at the local accident and emergency service in the clinical commissioning group (CCG) and were next to bottom in the CCG for patient emergency hospital admissions.

The areas where the provider must make improvement are:

• Ensure that safe systems, processes and procedures are in place for the management of refrigerated medicines and vaccines.

The areas where the provider should make improvement are:

• Ensure that all Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks are seen or risk assessments carried out before staff are allowed to work in direct contact with patients.
• Ensure that minutes are kept for all clinical staff meetings.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

We reviewed the information available to us about Arnold Medical Centre on 14 May 2019. We did not find evidence of significant changes to the quality of service being provided since the last inspection. As a result, we decided not to inspect the surgery at this time. We will continue to monitor this information about this service throughout the year and may inspect the surgery when we see evidence of potential changes.