Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Harcourt Medical Centre on 31 August 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 a 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.

• All patients had a named GP who they were encouraged to see whenever practical.

• Each GP had a named secretary who patients could contact if they needed support to resolve non-medical issues such as referrals.

• 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.

• Results from the national GP survey showed the practice was performing better than the national averages in most areas and was rated the third best practice in Wiltshire.

• 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. 

The area where the provider must make improvement are:

• The practice complaints policy did not meet the recognised guidance and contractual obligations for GPs in England and letters sent to patients in response to their complaint did not include information about how to escalate the complaint if they were not satisfied.

The areas where the provider should make improvement are:

•  

  Develop and adopt a significant events policy.

•  

  Improve their identification of carers.

•  

  Improve the accessibility of policies and procedures to all staff.

​

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

When we visited Harcourt Medical Centre on 31 August 2016 to

carry out a comprehensive inspection, we found the practice was not compliant

with the regulation relating to receiving and acting on complaints. Overall the

practice was rated as good.

We found the practice required improvement for the provision of responsive

services, because the complaints policy did not meet the recognised guidance

and contractual obligations for GPs in England. Letters sent to patients in

response to their complaint did not include information about how to escalate

the complaint if they were not satisfied.

We also said

the practice should:

• Develop and adopt a significant events policy.

• Improve their identification of carers.

• Improve the accessibility of policies and procedures to all

  staff.

Following the inspection the provider sent us an action plan

that set out the changes they would make and subsequently supplied information

to confirm they had completed the actions.

This focused desk-based inspection was undertaken to ensure that

the practice was meeting the regulation previously breached. 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 report of our inspection on 31

August 2016, which can be found on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

We found the practice had made improvements since our last

inspection. The information we received enabled us to find the practice was

meeting the regulation that it had previously breached. 

Specifically Harcourt Medical Centre:

• Had reviewed and revised their complaints policy and it now met

  the recognised guidance and contractual obligations for GPs in England.

• Letters sent to patients were clear, gave an apology, a summary

  and included information about how to escalate the complaint if they were not

  satisfied.

• Had developed and adopted an appropriate significant events

  policy.

• Showed us evidence that their actions to improve the

  identification of carers had resulted in more carers being identified.  Since our inspection in August 2016 the number

  identified had risen from 64 (0.7% of practice list) to 153 which is 1.3% of

  the practice list.

• Had reviewed the accessibility of their policies and procedures,

  and had improved staff access to these documents by putting them onto a shared

  computer drive which could be accessed by all staff from their computer

  desktop.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice