Dr Robert Mitchell

We carried out an announced inspection at Dr Mitchells’ practice on 27 – 29 April 2022. Overall, the practice is rated as outstanding.

The ratings for the key questions are as follows:

Safe - Good

Effective - Good

Caring - Outstanding

Responsive – Outstanding

Well-led - Good

Following our previous inspection on 28 July 2016, the practice was rated Good overall and for all key questions.

The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Dr Robert Mitchell on our website at www.cqc.org.uk

Why we carried out this inspection:

This inspection was a comprehensive inspection as part of our quality assurance of the new monitoring approach.

How we carried out the inspection/review

Throughout the pandemic CQC has continued to regulate and respond to risk. However, taking into account the circumstances arising as a result of the pandemic, and in order to reduce risk, we have conducted our inspections.

This inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to spend a minimum amount of time on site. This was with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements.

This included

• Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing
• Completing clinical searches on the practice’s patient records system and discussing findings with the provider
• Reviewing patient records to identify issues and clarify actions taken by the provider
• Requesting evidence from the provider
• A short site visit

Our findings

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 Outstanding overall

We found that:

• The practice provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm.
• Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs. The practice routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided.
• Patients were treated with kindness, respect and compassion. The most recent GP patient survey results showed the practice as being above local Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and national averages in respect for the way patients were treated by staff.
• Access to appointments was easily available to patients. The practice achieved a score of 100% on how easy it was to get through to someone at their GP practice. Feedback was provided by patients who advised that through the COVID-19 pandemic they still had access to services provided by the practice.
• Feedback received from patients was excellent and described a caring and person-centred service that was at the heart of the local community. Multiple examples were provided by staff and patients to demonstrate an excellent caring approach to patients.
• The practice had achieved significant uptake in cervical screening, breast cancer and bowel cancer screening compared to both the local and national average. This has been recognised by the CCG who contacted them to advise they were the best in the local area and second nationally.
• The practice had identified areas where there were gaps in provision locally and had taken steps to address them; particularly with work through the Primary Care Network (PCN) identifying issues for patients who needed support with their mental health.
• Leadership, governance and culture were used to drive and improve the delivery of high-quality person-centred care;
• The practice demonstrated a clear and committed approach to continuous improvement and innovation by the way they responded to the challenges of COVID-19. The practice was able to introduce changes in to how they responded to patients through the pandemic while maintaining access to services.
• The practice had a succession plan in place. They worked closely with the local Sixth form college and would employ students who were applying to medical school. There were two students who had nearly finished their university course and had contacted the practice asking for opportunities to work for them in the future.

Whilst we found no breaches of regulations, the provider should:

• Improve the systems that are in place so that historical medicines safety alerts are always acted on.

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