Background to this inspection
Updated
16 November 2021
The Village Surgery situated at Caledon Road, London Colney, Herts, AL2 1PU, is a GP practice which provides primary medical care for approximately 8,887patients living in London Colney and surrounding areas.
The Village Surgery provides primary care services to local communities under a General Medical Services (GMS) contract, which is a nationally agreed contract between general practices and NHS England. The practice population is predominantly white British along
with larger ethnic population of Asian, and smaller populations of Afro Caribbean, mixed race and Eastern European origin. Information published by Public Health England, rates the level of deprivation within the practice population group as nine on a scale of one to 10. Level one represents the highest levels of deprivation and level 10 the lowest.
The practice has three GP partners (one female and two males) and three salaried GPs (all females). There are two practice nurses (one of whom commenced employment during week 10 February 2020). There is an advanced nurse practitioner, a lead nurse and a healthcare assistant.
There is a practice manager who is supported by a team of administrative and reception staff.
The local NHS trust provides health visiting, midwifery, and community nursing services to patients at this practice.
The practice is open between 8am and 6.30pm Monday to Friday. There is extended opening from 6.30am until 8.30pm on a Monday and weekend and late evening appointments available through the St Albans and Harpenden extended access hub. When the practice is closed services are provided by Herts Urgent Care via 111.
Updated
16 November 2021
We carried out an announced follow up inspection at The Village Surgery on 5 and 6 October 2021 as the practice had previously been rated Requires Improvement. At the last inspection we identified the following areas for improvement:
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.
The areas where the provider should make improvements are:
- Act to complete the actions highlighted in the fire risk assessment of 6 February 2020.
- Act to ensure the building plans for the new practice premises are completed as scheduled so the space constraints of the current location are resolved in a timely way.
- Act to achieve the 95% WHO based target for childhood immunisations.
- Act to achieve the cervical cancer screening 80% national programme coverage measure set by Public Health England.
We found the provider had made improvements at this inspection in all of the areas above. The provider had moved to a new purpose built premises in August 2021. Whilst the practice was just under the target for cervical screening and one of the childhood immunisation targets, they had worked hard to improve uptake and were continuing to do so.
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 is why there was a delay in reinspecting this service.
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.
Key findings included:
- The practice provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm.
- Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
- The practice now had a comprehensive system in place to learn from significant events and complaints.
- The practice had completed two cycle audits over the last 12 months to improve outcomes for patients including a two week wait audit.
- Most patients we reviewed had received annual reviews in a timely manner. There were a couple of patients who hadn’t received their review in the recommended timescale due to the pandemic. The practice rectified this straight after the inspection and called them in for their blood tests straightaway.
The provider should:
- Continue to improve its cervical screening uptake rates.
- Continue to improve its childhood immunisations uptake rates.
- Review the electronic patient system to ensure that all patients are coded correctly.
- Continue to have timely reviews for patients with long-term conditions.
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
Working age people (including those recently retired and students)
Updated
2 April 2020
People experiencing poor mental health (including people with dementia)
Updated
2 April 2020