Headquarters Medway Practices Alliance

This service is rated as Good overall.

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? – Good

Are services effective? – Good

Are services caring? – Good

Are services responsive? – Good

Are services well-led? – Good

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Headquarters Medway Practices Alliance on 6 and 12 June 2023. The inspection was planned to check whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

The provider delivers enhanced access GP services as well as a home visiting service to the patients of 44 GP practices in the NHS Kent and Medway Integrated Care Board (ICB) area.

Our key findings were:

• There were clear systems to help keep people safe and safeguarded from abuse.
• Risks to patients, staff and visitors were assessed, monitored and managed effectively.
• Staff had the information they needed to deliver safe care and treatment to patients.
• There were reliable systems for appropriate and safe handling of medicines.
• Patients’ needs were assessed and care as well as treatment were delivered in line with current legislation, standards and guidance.
• Staff had the skills, knowledge and experience to carry out their roles and worked together as well as with other organisations to deliver effective care and treatment.
• Staff treated patients with kindness, respect as well as compassion and helped patients to be involved in decisions about care and treatment.
• Services were organised and delivered to meet patients’ needs and patients were able to access services within an appropriate timescale for their needs.
• Leaders had the capacity and skills to deliver high-quality, sustainable care and the service had a clear vision to deliver high-quality care as well as promote good outcomes for patients.
• There were clear responsibilities, roles and systems of accountability to support good governance and management.
• The service involved patients, the public, staff and external partners to support high-quality sustainable services.
• There were systems and processes for learning, continuous improvement and innovation.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Continue with plans to train all primary care hub (PCH) reception staff as fire marshals.
• Revise systems to help ensure all emergency equipment and all emergency medicines that are required to be kept are available at all PCHs.
• Continue with plans to repeat all clinical audits to complete the cycle of clinical audit.

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

Chief Inspector of Health Care