Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection of this practice on 24 March 2015. Breaches of legal requirements were found. After the comprehensive inspection, the practice wrote to us to say what they would do to meet legal requirements in relation to the regulatory breaches of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) 2014 Regulation 12 Safe care and treatment and Regulation 17 Good governance.

We undertook this comprehensive inspection on 21 July 2016 to check that they had followed their plan and to confirm that they now met the legal requirements.

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.

• 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.

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 Blyth Road Medical Centre on 24 March 2015. Overall the practice is rated as requires improvement.

Specifically, we found the practice to require improvement for providing safe, caring, responsive and well led services. They are rated good for effective services. They also required improvement for providing services for all the population groups.

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

• Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns, and to report incidents.
• Near misses were not reported or investigated.
• Information about safety was recorded, monitored, reviewed and addressed but not shared widely with staff.
• Data showed patient outcomes were average or above for the locality and the practice had a plan in place to improve diabetic care for patients
• Some audits had been carried out and we saw some evidence they were driving improvement in performance to improve patient outcomes.
• Patients said they were mostly treated with compassion, dignity and respect and mostly involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.
• Information about services and how to complain was available and easy to understand.
• Urgent appointments were usually available on the day they were requested. Patients reported difficulty getting through to the practice by telephone to make an appointment.
• The practice had a number of policies and procedures to govern activity, but these were not always followed by staff.
• The practice had not proactively sought feedback from staff.

The areas where the provider must make improvements are:

• Ensure near misses are reported and investigated
• Ensure an infection control audit is completed and action plan implemented in accord with the findings.
• Ensure the practice keeps a medicine stock list which is checked regularly.
• Risk assess the storage of medical records to comply with security and record retention schedules
• Ensure all staff follow practice policies and procedures

In addition the provider should:

• Perform a risk assessment for the provision of oxygen on the premises
• Review how learning from incidents and complaints is shared with all staff in a timely manner
• Review leadership arrangements
• Review the length of GP appointments to ensure they meet the differing needs of the patient population

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

We reviewed the information available to us about Blyth Road Medical Centre on 8 June 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.