The Care Quality Commission
  • Doctor
  • GP practice

Dr C J Studds and Partners Also known as Meadowside Medical Centre

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

Meadowside, Mountbatten Way, Congleton, Cheshire, CW12 1DY (01260) 272331

Provided and run by:
Dr C J Studds and Partners

All Inspections

6 July 2023

During a monthly review of our data

We carried out a review of the data available to us about Dr C J Studds and Partners 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 Dr C J Studds and Partners, you can give feedback on this service.

18 January 2024

During an inspection looking at part of the service

We carried out an announced assessment of Dr C J Studds and Partners (also known as Meadowside Medical Centre) on 18 January 2024 without a site visit. The assessment focused on the responsive key question.

Following our previous inspection on 4 February 2020 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 C J Studds and Partners on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

The practice continues to be rated as good overall as this was the rating given at the last comprehensive inspection. However, we have now rated the responsive key question as requires improvement because of the findings of this focused assessment.

Safe - good

Effective - good

Caring - good

Responsive – requires improvement

Well-led - good

Why we carried out this inspection

We carried out this assessment as part of our work to understand how practices are working to try to meet demand for access and to better understand the experiences of people who use services and providers.

We recognise the work that GP practices have been engaged in to continue to provide safe, quality care to the people they serve. We know colleagues are doing this while demand for general practice remains exceptionally high, with more appointments being provided than ever. In this challenging context, access to general practice remains a concern for people. Our strategy makes a commitment to deliver regulation driven by people’s needs and experiences of care. These assessments of the responsive key question include looking at what practices are doing innovatively to improve patient access to primary care and sharing this information to drive improvement.

How we carried out the assessment

This assessment was carried out remotely.

This included:

• Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing.

• Requesting evidence from the provider.

• Reviewing patient feedback from a range of sources

• Reviewing data we hold about the service

• Seeking information/feedback from relevant stakeholders

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:

  • During the assessment process, the provider highlighted the efforts they are making or are planning to make to improve the responsiveness of the service for their patient population. The effect of these efforts are not yet reflected in patient feedback. Patient feedback indicated that they could not always access care and treatment in a timely way. Patients were dissatisfied with the arrangement for getting through to the practice by phone and their experience of obtaining an appointment.
  • Not all information was included in responses to patient complaints.

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

  • Continue to identify ways of improving the appointment system and access to the service by phone.
  • Take action to provide patients with all information with regards options for raising concerns about the service.

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

4 February 2020

During a routine inspection

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Dr Studds and Partners (also known as Meadowside Medical Centre) on 4 February 2020 as part of our inspection programme.

At this inspection we followed up on breaches of regulations identified at a previous inspection on 9 January 2019.

This inspection looked at the following key questions:

Safe

Effective

Caring

Responsive

Well-led

At the last inspection in January 2019 we rated the practice as requires improvement for providing safe and well-led services because: There was a lack of systems and processes established and operated effectively to ensure compliance with requirements to demonstrate good governance. There were a lack of systems and processes to demonstrate the provider was doing all that was reasonably practicable to mitigate risks. The monitoring of the training needs of staff to enable them to carry out their roles and responsibilities appropriately and safely was not effective. Policies and procedures were not reviewed to ensure they were in line with current best practice. Internal audits were not effectively used to support improvement and mitigate risk. Some infection control practices required improvement. There was no documentary evidence to show that the competency of staff trained to carry out extended health care roles had been assessed. The monitoring of the temperatures of vaccine fridges was not effective. Meetings were not appropriately recorded and there was no evidence that learning and actions from incidents were shared with the whole staff team.

At this inspection we found that the provider had satisfactorily addressed the above areas.

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 and good for all population groups.

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.
  • Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
  • The practice organised and delivered services to meet patients’ needs. Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.
  • The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of good quality, person-centre care.

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

  • Review the system in place for managing safety alerts to ensure this is robust and demonstrates the actions taken.
  • Review safeguarding arrangements to include setting up an alert for relevant others for children at risk.
  • Review the arrangements for ensuring health checks have been carried out prior to prescribing high risk medicines.
  • Introduce a programme of clinical audit in an aim to improve outcomes for patients.
  • Review the emergency medicines held and ensure an appropriate risk assessment has been carried out if required.

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

09 Jan to 09 Jan 2019

During a routine inspection

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Dr C J Studds and Partners (Meadowside Medical Centre) on 9 January 2019 as part of our inspection programme.

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.

The overall rating for this practice was requires improvement due to concerns in providing safe and well-led services. However, the population groups were rated as good because patients were able to access timely and effective care and treatment.

We rated the practice as requires improvement for providing safe services because:

  • There was no documentary evidence to show that the competency of staff trained to carry out extended health care roles was assessed and monitored.
  • Patient Specific Directives had not been authorised appropriately.
  • The monitoring of the temperatures of vaccine fridges was not effective.
  • There was no documentary evidence that showed learning and action taken from incidents had been shared with the whole staff team.

We rated the practice as requires improvement for providing well led services:

  • The overall governance arrangements in place were limited and did not support an overview of the performance of the service.
  • Policies and procedures were not reviewed to reflect current good practice for example, the infection prevention control policy and safeguarding.
  • Training needs were not always being appropriately identified and actioned for example, Mental Capacity Act, health and safety and safeguarding children training.
  • There were limited quality assurance systems in place to support service improvement and safety.

We rated the practice as good for providing effective, caring and responsive services because:

  • Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
  • The practice organised and delivered services to meet patients’ needs. Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.
  • Care and treatment was delivered in line with standards and evidence-based guidance supported by clear pathways and tools.


The areas where the provider must make improvements are:

  • Ensure that care and treatment is provided in a safe way.
  • 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:

  • Suitable training should be provided to the health and safety lead to ensure the risk assessments meet current legal requirements.
  • A system to ensure blank prescriptions held in printers are logged and secured when the practice was closed should be introduced.
  • The practice should review how patient electronic information was stored to ensure it is only held on/in patient records.

Chief inspector

11 December 2014

During a routine inspection

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

This is the report of findings from our inspection of Dr C M Thomson and Partners, also known as Meadowside Medical Centre. Our inspection was a planned comprehensive inspection, which took place on 11 December 2014.

The service provided by Dr C M Thomson and Partners is rated as good. On inspection we found that care was safe, effective, well-led and responsive to patients’ needs. All patients we were able to speak to on the day of our inspection told us that the staff at the practice were caring and treated them with dignity and respect.

Our key findings were as follows:

  • The practice GPs delivered good evidenced based care and treatment, following recognised best practice. Patient safety was a priority for all clinicians and staff at the practice.
  • The practice nurses delivered effective disease management clinics that met the needs of patients.
  • The practice was responsive to patient feedback; the reception area was recently altered to ensure telephone conversations between staff and patients could not be overheard.
  • The practice was well-led; staff and clinicians consistently reviewed appointment availability to ensure all patients’ needs were met.
  • Feedback from patients we spoke to on the day of our inspection told us the practice clinicians were very caring. This was also the view expressed by patients who completed Care Quality Commission comment cards.

There were also areas of practice where the provider could make improvements.

  • The practice had a system in place for cascade and sharing of Medical and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) alerts. However, no one person was given responsibility for leading on this, for example, in co-ordination of patient healthcare reviews and adding these alerts (when appropriate) to the agenda for practice meetings.

Based on the findings of this inspection the practice is rated as good.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice