Background to this inspection
Updated
30 September 2019
The Spitalfields Practice is situated within NHS Tower Hamlets Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). The practice provides services to approximately 13,827 patients under a General Medical Services (GMS) contract (this is a contract between general practices and NHS England for delivering primary care services to local communities).
The practice has a website: www.thespitalfieldspractice.nhs.uk
Tower Hamlets CCG consists of 36 GP practices split into eight networks. The Spitalfields Practice is part of network two, the ‘East End Health Network’, comprising of five practices in the locality.
The practice is registered with the CQC to carry on the following regulated activities: Diagnostic and screening procedures; Family planning; Maternity and midwifery services; Surgical procedures; and Treatment of disease, disorder or injury.
The clinical team at the practice consists of three male and two female GP partners collectively providing 36 clinical sessions per week, two salaried GPs collectively providing 12 clinical sessions per week, two female practice nurses collectively providing 20 clinical sessions per week, and one male and one female healthcare assistant. There is a locum clinical pharmacist who works at the practice and a clinical psychologist also attends the practice one day per week through the local network. There is a full-time practice manager, an assistant practice manager and a team of reception and administrative staff members. The Spitalfields Practice is also a teaching practice for medical students.
The practice is open Monday to Friday from 8am to 6.30pm, with appointments available from 8.30am to 12pm and from 3pm to 5pm every day.
Appointments include home visits, telephone consultations and online consultations. Patients telephoning when the practice is closed are directed to the local out-of-hours service provider.
Information published by Public Health England rates the level of deprivation within the practice population group as two, on a scale of one to ten. Level one represents the highest levels of deprivation and level ten the lowest. In England, people living in the least deprived areas of the country live around 20 years longer in good health than people in the most deprived areas.
Updated
30 September 2019
We carried out an announced inspection of The Spitalfields Practice on 6 September 2019 following our annual review of the information available to us about the practice. This inspection looked at the following key questions:
- Are services effective?
- Are services caring?
- Are services well-led?
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 rated the practice as good for providing effective, caring and well-led services because:
- Care and treatment was delivered in line with current legislation, standards and evidence-based guidance.
- The practice reviewed and monitored the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care and treatment it provided through a programme of quality improvement activity.
- Staff had the skills, knowledge and experience to carry out their roles.
- Patient feedback in CQC comment cards was positive about the service.
- The practice had discussed low GP Patient Survey results for questions relating to kindness and compassion, and had an action plan in place to try and improve scores.
- The practice respected patients’ privacy and dignity.
- There were clear responsibilities, roles and systems of accountability to support good governance and management.
- The practice had effective processes for managing risks, issues and performance.
- There was a focus on learning, continuous improvement and innovation.
We did not inspect whether the practice was providing safe and responsive services at this inspection and have used the previous ratings in making our judgement about the overall quality of care.
Whilst we found no breaches of regulations, there were areas where the provider could make improvements and should:
- Ensure the system to monitor uncollected prescriptions is embedded and adhered to.
- Continue monitoring and working to improve data for childhood immunisations, cervical screening and cancer patient reviews.
- Consider formalising oversight of clinicians through documented record checks.
- Continue to monitor and take action regarding feedback about how patients feel they are treated by clinicians and carry out practice patient surveys.
- Review how carers are identified and recorded on the clinical system to ensure information, advice and support is made available to them.
Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence table.
Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP
Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care