• Doctor
  • GP practice

Cockfosters Medical Centre

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

Heddon Court Avenue, Barnet, Hertfordshire, EN4 9NB (020) 8441 7008

Provided and run by:
Cockfosters Medical Centre

Latest inspection summary

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Background to this inspection

Updated 26 May 2017

The Cockfosters Medical Centre practice is located in Barnet, North London within the NHS Enfield Clinical Commissioning Group. The practice holds a General Medical Services contract (an agreement between NHS England and general practices for delivering primary care services to local communities). The practice provides a full range of enhanced services including childhood vaccination and immunisation, extended hours access, facilitating timely diagnosis and support for people with dementia, improving patient inline access, influenza and pneumococcal, minor surgery, risk profiling and case management, rotavirus and shingles Immunisation and unplanned admissions.

The practice is registered with the Care Quality Commission to carry on the regulated activities of surgical procedures, treatment of disease, disorder or injury, and maternity and midwifery services, diagnostic and screening procedures.

The practice had a patient list size of 6,245 at the time of our inspection. The staff team at the practice included four GP partners (two females and two males), one practice nurses (female) and one practice manager. The practice had 11 administrative staff. There were 24 GP sessions and eight nurse sessions available per week.

The practices opening hours are:

  • Monday to Friday from 8.00am to 6.30pm

Appointments with GPs are available at the following times:

  • Monday to Friday from 8.20am to 11.30am and 2.30pm to 6.00pm

Extended hour appointments are available:

  • Monday, Tuesday and Thursday from 7.30am to 8.00am and 6.30pm to 7.00pm

Outside of these times patients are diverted to NHS 111 which directs them to the practices out of hour’s provider if required.

To assist patients in accessing the service there is an online booking system, and a text message reminder service for scheduled appointments. Urgent appointments are available daily and GPs also complete telephone consultations for patients.

Overall inspection

Good

Updated 26 May 2017

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Cockfosters Medical Centre on 23 August 2016. The overall rating for the practice was good, however there was a breach of regulation identified which resulted in the rating of requires improvement for the effective domain. The full comprehensive report for the inspection carried out in August 2016 can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Cockfosters Medical Centre on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

This inspection was an announced desk-based review carried out on 10 May 2017 to confirm that the practice had carried out their plan to meet the legal requirements in relation to the breach in regulation that we identified in our previous inspection on 23 August 2016. This report covers our findings in relation to those requirements and also additional improvements made since our last inspection.

Overall the practice is now rated as good, including the effective domain.

Our key findings were as follows:

  • The practice had a failsafe system in place for the monitoring of screening results, a GP partner was the lead for the system. One sample taker had completed refresher training and the other sample taker was booked to attend training in June 2017.

  • The practice adheres to a carer protocol and has increased the number of carers identified to more than 1% since the inspection in August 2016.

  • The practice has created a prescription pad security protocol and maintains a register of serial numbers for all prescriptions received and distributed.

  • The practice has taken steps to improve patient satisfaction including securing a grant to update the premises. For example, the addition of an automatic door which has received positive feedback from patients.

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

In addition the provider should:

  • Continue to monitor the rate of screening samples unsuitable for analysis by the lab and ensure this percentage is in line with or below the national average of 2.5%.

At our previous inspection on 23 August 2016, we rated the practice as requires improvement for providing effective services as the system for monitoring the results of screening samples did not include investigation, learning and outcomes when there is a high percentage of samples being identified as unsuitable for analysis by the laboratory. At this inspection we found that a system monitoring the quality of screening samples had been introduced and a significant improvement had been made in reducing the number of screening samples that are unsuitable for analysis.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP

Chief Inspector of General Practice

People experiencing poor mental health (including people with dementia)

Good

Updated 26 May 2017

The practice is rated as good for the care of people experiencing poor mental health (including people with dementia). As the practice was found to be providing good services overall, this did not affect the rating for the population group we inspect against.