Old Road Medical Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Old Road Medical Practice on 1st June 2023. Overall, the practice is rated as good.

Safe - good

Effective - good

Caring - good

Responsive - good

Well-led - outstanding

When this practice registered with us, it inherited the regulatory history and ratings of its predecessor. This is the first inspection at Old Road Medical practice under the new registered provider. When we previously inspected the practice in May 2017 they were rated as good overall. Under our continuing regulatory history policy, the rating of good was inherited.

The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Old Road Medical Practice on our website at www.cqc.org.uk

Why we carried out this inspection

We carried out this first inspection of a registered provider in line with our inspection priorities.

How we carried out the inspection

This inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to spend a minimum amount of time on site.

This included

• Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing.
• Completing clinical searches on the practice’s patient records system (this was with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements).
• Reviewing patient records to identify issues and clarify actions taken by the provider.
• Requesting evidence from the provider.
• A short site visit.
• Staff questionnaires.

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:

• The practice provided care and treatment 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.
• Patients told us they could access care and treatment in a timely way. This was reflected by their patients in the national GP survey responses.
• The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centred care.
• There was understanding, inclusive, and effective leadership at all levels.
• Leaders at all levels demonstrated high levels of experience, capacity and capability, needed to deliver excellent sustainable care.
• There was an embedded system of leadership development and succession planning, which included successful leadership strategies to sustain service delivery and develop a caring culture.
• Leaders understood the issues, challenges, and priorities of their practice population and that of their local primary care network partners in their locality.
• We found a strong collaboration, across the practice teams to support a common focus of improving the quality and sustainability of patients care and experiences.
• We saw governance procedures were proactively reviewed, and reflected best practice.
• There was a demonstrated commitment to best practice performance, and risk management systems and processes.
• The practice reviewed and ensured that staff at all levels had the skills and knowledge to perform their roles effectively.

We found when problems were identified they acted quickly, openly, and learned from them.

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

• Continue the work underway to reduce the antibacterial, and antibiotic prescribing.
• Continue the work underway to reduce the elevated hypnotic, and elevated multiple psychotropic prescribing.
• Continue and improve the uptake of childhood immunistations and cervical screening.

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 Hospitals and Interim Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services