The Care Quality Commission
  • Doctor
  • GP practice

The Gratton Surgery

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

Gratton Close, Sutton Scotney, Winchester, Hampshire, SO21 3LE (01962) 760394

Provided and run by:
The Gratton Surgery

All Inspections

6 July 2023

During a monthly review of our data

We carried out a review of the data available to us about The Gratton Surgery on 6 July 2023. We have not found evidence that we need to carry out an inspection or reassess our rating at this stage.

This could change at any time if we receive new information. We will continue to monitor data about this service.

If you have concerns about The Gratton Surgery, you can give feedback on this service.

11 Aug 2020

During an inspection looking at part of the service

We previously carried out an announced focused inspection at The Gratton Surgery, on 9 January 2020 as part of our inspection programme. The inspection was carried out following an annual regulatory review of information available to us. The inspection looked at the Safe, Effective and Well-led domains. We rated the practice as Good overall, however we found a breach of regulations and rated Safe as Requires Improvement. You can read the full report by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for The Gratton Surgery on our website at .

We were mindful of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on our regulatory function. This meant we took account of the exceptional circumstances arising as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic when considering what type of inspection was necessary and proportionate, this was therefore a desk-based review. On 11 August 2020, we commenced the desk-based review to confirm that the practice had carried out its plan to meet the legal requirements in relation to the breach of regulations that we identified at our previous inspection in January 2020.

We found that the practice is now meeting those requirements and we have amended the rating for this practice accordingly. The practice is now rated Good for the provision of Safe services. We previously rated the practice as Good for providing Effective, Caring, Responsive and Well-Led services.

We based our judgement of the quality of care at this service on a combination of:

  • what we found when we reviewed the information sent to us by the provider
  • information from our ongoing monitoring of data about services and
  • information from the provider.

We have rated Safe as Good because:

  • The practice demonstrated improvements to the monitoring system and process for inbound messages, for example test results, referrals and other correspondence. A protocol had been implemented which stipulated daily and weekly checks by clinical staff and the practice had identified a non-clinical staff member who completed this task to ensure all test results were actioned appropriately.
  • All staff had a current record of completing their mandatory infection prevention and control training module, as expected by the practice.
  • The practice demonstrated it had improved its monitoring processes of its blank prescription stationery in line with national guidance.
  • The practice had reviewed the risks to patients accessing their prescriptions remotely and had updated its risk assessment in view of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic accordingly.

Although not part of the practice’s previous regulatory breach, the practice demonstrated it had also made improvements since our last inspection in the areas of:

  • Providing sepsis awareness training to all its receptionists, with a further plan to deliver the same training to all its non-clinical staff in due course.

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

9 Jan 2020

During an inspection looking at part of the service

We decided to undertake an announced focused inspection of The Gratton Surgery on 9 January 2020 following our annual regulatory review of the information available to us. This inspection looked at the following key questions:

  • Are the services provided at this location safe?
  • Are the services provided at this location effective?
  • Are the services provided at this location well-led?

The practice’s annual regulatory review did not indicate that the quality of care had potentially changed in relation to provision of Caring and Responsive services. As a result, the ratings from the practice’s previous comprehensive inspection from 2014 still stand in those key questions.

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 good overall but requires improvement for providing safe services. We have rated all population groups as good.

We found that:

  • The practice provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm but it had not fully addressed the identified risks to patients accessing their prescriptions remotely with alternative collection arrangements.
  • Oversight of the monitoring and security of prescription stationery was not in line with national guidance.
  • Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs.
  • The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centre care.
  • When issues relating to the oversight of systems and processes were identified on inspection, the practice was quick to act, to investigate and to implement new processes to prevent re-occurrences.
  • The practice worked proactively with local initiatives, other local service providers and commissioning groups to support and provide continually improving services.

We saw one area of outstanding practice as follows:

  • By working with local organisations, the practice had developed remote clinics to visit its local transient populations. By visiting and working with those families, the practice had worked to improve childhood immunisations uptake and chronic disease management. As a result of that work, the practice showed it had immunised seven out of nine identified children in line with the national childhood immunisation schedule, who had not been previously immunised.

The areas where the provider must make improvements are:

  • Establish effective systems and processes to ensure good governance in accordance with the fundamental standards of care.

(Please see the specific details on action required at the end of this report).

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

  • Provide sepsis awareness training or red-flag symptom information relating to sepsis to receptionists to support the early identification of sepsis in patients.
  • Introduce a process for consistently monitoring consent seeking processes, to ensure patient consent is gained in accordance with legislation and guidance.

Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGPChief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care

31 July 2015

During an inspection looking at part of the service

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced focused inspection of The Gratton Surgery, Gratton Close, Sutton Scotney, Winchester, Hampshire SO21 3LE on 31 July 2015. This inspection was undertaken to check the practice was meeting regulations. Our previous inspection in October 2014 had found a breach of regulations relating to the safe delivery of services. We found the practice required improvement for the provision of safe services, and was rated good for providing effective, caring, responsive and well-led services.

We found the practice had made improvements since our last inspection on 16 October 2014. At our inspection on the 31 July 2015 we found the practice was meeting the regulations that had previously been breached.

Specifically the practice had:

  • Introduced a medicines delivery service for their dispensing patients to ensure that those medicines requiring refrigeration were not sent for remote collection.
  • Revised their dispensing procedures and processes for the generation, signing and dispensing of repeat prescriptions for dispensing patients and a GP signed all repeat prescriptions prior to the medicines being handed to the patient.

We have amended the rating for this practice to reflect these changes. The practice is now rated good for the provision of safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led services.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

16 October 2014

During a routine inspection

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

This was a comprehensive inspection of the Gratton Surgery and was carried out on 16 October 2014.

The practice was well led by the GP partners and the practice manager and provided training opportunities for GP trainees. We rated this practice as good overall.

Our key findings were as follows:

  • The practice was rated highly by patients. 90% of patients who respondent to the GP patient survey described the overall experience of the practice as good or very good.
  • The practice provided GP appointments at times that met the needs of their patients.
  • There were effective infection control procedures in place and the practice building appeared clean and tidy.
  • The practice had its own dispensary for patients who lived more than 1.6 km from a pharmacy.

We saw areas of outstanding practice including:

  • Patients had the opportunity to speak directly by telephone with their GP each morning between 8.15 and 8.50 a.m.
  • The practice had emergency home visit medicines bags containing pre-labelled packs of medicines to ensure that patients had immediate access to the medicines they may need.
  • The practice had a system for recording “hospital only” and “over the counter” medicines within the prescribing system to identify any possible drug interactions.
  • The practice was able to deal with minor injuries to prevent the need for patients to visit accident and emergency (A & E) or the minor injuries department at the local hospital. The practice nurses were available and trained to suture and dress wounds.
  • The practice had completed an audit of recent deaths. The purpose of this was to identify if all was being done to ensure patients had good end of life care.

However, there were also areas of practice where the provider needs to make improvements.

Importantly, the provider must:

  • Ensure that medicines for remote collection that also require refrigeration are kept within recommended temperature ranges.
  • Ensure all prescriptions are signed by a GP prior to medicines being handed to the patient.

In addition the provider should:

  • Have a risk assessment and policy for the management and testing of Legionella

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice