Updated 20 November 2024
We carried out an announced assessment at The Sidings Medical Practice which we visited on 5 February 2025 and then a further visit was carried out on 15 April 2025 to follow up on what the provider stated they would do to make immediate improvements. Remote searches of the clinical systems took place on 3 February 2025 and 15 April 2025.
We reviewed all quality statements under the Safe, Effective, Responsive and Well-led key questions. We did not review the key question for Caring, the rating for Caring will be carried forward from our previous inspection.
This assessment was carried out to review improvements following findings from our last inspection on 27 March 2024. The practice was rated Inadequate overall and for Safe and Well Led, Requires Improvement for Effective and Responsive, and Good for Caring. The practice was found to be in breach of Regulations 12 and 17 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014, placed in Special Measures with Conditions applied to their registration with the Care Quality Commission. Prior to our current assessment the Conditions related to Regulation 12 had been met, but the Conditions related Regulation 17 had not all been met.
The Sidings Medical Practice is a general practice (GP) which is part of OMNES Healthcare providing personal medical services (PMS) to a registered population of approximately 16,500 patients in Boston.
The National General Practice Profile states that 94% of patients registered at this practice are white, 2.3% Asian, 0.69% Black, 1.58% Mixed, and 1.34% Other.
Improvement and Disparities shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the 5th decile (1 of 10). The lower the decile, the more deprived the practice population is relative to others.
At this assessment we found that some improvements had been made to issues highlighted in our previous inspection with further concerns identified.
The provider had failed to maintain oversight of the practice and care delivered to patients at the local level. Safety was compromised as care was not always effective or based on national guidance. Patients could not access the service in a timely way due to local changes in systems and processes. Leadership was not effective; this led to staff dissatisfaction and high staff turnover rates. The culture was negative with staff wellbeing not seen as a priority and staff reported an environment built on fear. The provider had not monitored performance and governance systems had failed to highlight the concerns we identified.
The provider was very responsive to our findings, making immediate changes to improve safety and reviewing all concerns to identify and instigate medium and long term solutions.
We rated the practice as Requires Improvement overall along with the key questions of Safe, Effective, Responsive and Well Led was rated as Inadequate. Further commentary is provided in the quality statements section of this report.
We identified two breaches of regulation in relation to the Health and Social Care Act (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 Regulation 12 Safe Care and Treatment and Regulation 17 Good Governance and Conditions were placed on the registration.
Due to the rating the practice remains in Special Measures.