Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Rushall Medical Centre on 8 November 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 both internally and externally.
• 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.
• The practice were proactive in identifying areas for further improvement or development and utilised quality monitoring and benchmarking to drive improvement.

We saw one area of outstanding practice:

• We saw that all incidents and complaints were RAG rated (Red, Amber, Green) in order to monitor the level of risk. A log of all incidents was maintained, and we saw that 17 had been recorded since January 2016. All incidents and complaints were categorised, for example, clinical, medication, administration and communication. The practice carried out a thorough analysis of the significant events in order to identify trends and areas for further learning. The practice told us that all incidents relating to medicines were reported to the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) in order to share the learning. The Practice were proactive in identifying areas for further improvement.

• Processes were in place for handling repeat prescriptions which included the review of high risk medicines. High risk medicines and antidepressants were not included in the repeat prescription policy and process. These were available on acute prescription and were only issued following a telephone or face to face consultation with a clinician.

The areas where the provider should make improvement are:

• Increase the number of identified carers. The practice had identified 0.72% patients as carers which was less than 1% of the practice list.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

We reviewed the information available to us about Rushall Medical Centre on 29 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.