We carried out an announced focused inspection at St Anthony’s Health Centre on 17, 19 and 24 January 2024. Overall, the practice is rated as outstanding.
- Safe - good
- Effective - good
- Caring - good (not inspected, rating of good carried forward from previous inspection.)
- Responsive - good
- Well-led - good
Following our previous inspection on 17 February 2015, 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 St Anthony’s Health Centre on our website at www.cqc.org.uk
Why we carried out this inspection
We carried out this inspection in line with our inspection priorities.
Our inspection focus was on the following key questions:
- Safe
- Effective
- Responsive, and
- Well led.
How we carried out the inspection/review
This inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to spend a minimum amount of time on site.
This included:
- Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing.
- Completing clinical searches on the practice’s patient records system (this was with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements).
- Reviewing patient records to identify issues and clarify actions taken by the provider.
- Requesting evidence from the provider.
- A short site visit.
- Sending out a questionnaire to staff.
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 found that:
- Clinicians and leaders had a clear understanding of the complexity of health deprivation in the local community. They had used their understanding to target health inequalities and work collaboratively with partners to support the needs of patients with complex health needs. There was an overriding and intrinsic focus in everything the practice did to tackle the intergenerational detriments to health.
- There was a truly holistic approach to assessing, planning and delivering care and treatment for patients.
- There was a clear shared purpose driven by a passion to improve the health of the local community. The practice worked collaboratively with partners to identify and develop practical interventions to address holistically the health inequalities in the area.
- Quality improvement and clinical audit were integral to the practice understanding and working together to improve the quality of care provided. This led to a systematic approach to working with other organisations to improve care outcomes and tackle health inequalities.
- There was a strong focus on improving the quality of care and people’s experiences.
- There were high levels of staff satisfaction and staff felt recognised and valued for the work they did.
- Safe innovation was celebrated. There was a clear and proactive approach to seeking out and embedding new ways of providing safe and effective care and treatment.
- 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.
- Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.
- The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centre care.
We saw areas of outstanding practice:
- There was an overriding and intrinsic focus in everything the practice did to tackle the intergenerational detriments to health. They were working innovatively with a range of partners to ensure patients received coordinated joined up care. The practice had a strategic aim to reduce health inequalities and supported this through the use of targeted clinical audit and quality improvement work. For example, the practice had significantly reduced the prescribing of medicines that have risks of misuse, physical dependency and medical harm.
- The practice had developed and implemented an innovative service for patients experiencing mental health difficulties. They employed a General Practitioner Clinical Psychologist (GPCP). As well as individual appointments, the GPCP offered advice and support to GPs in dealing with patient’s mental health, and community-based group sessions for patients. Other local practices had taken an interest in this initiative, and some were in the process of implementing this approach. The practice were expanding on this approach with a Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner due to start in February 2024.
- The partners told us they worked hard to foster a working environment in which staff felt supported and were able to speak up if they had concerns. They prioritised connection and collaboration both within their team and with colleagues from other services. We saw evidence to support this across the inspection.
Whilst we found no breaches of regulations, the provider should:
- Improve the documentation of checks on the prescribing competence of non-medical prescribers to ensure ongoing assurance for those staff who have completed training and mentoring.
- Continue their work to encourage increases in the uptake rates of MMR vaccination and cervical cancer screening.
- Ensure the views of patients are integral to identifying and addressing any areas for improvements to support good access to high quality and sustainable care and improving patient satisfaction.
Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.
Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA
Chief Inspector of Health Care