Archived: Your Health Partnership - Whiteheath Medical Centre

This practice is rated as requires improvement overall. (At our previous inspection in January 2016 the practice was rated as Good overall)

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? – Requires Improvement

Are services effective? – Good

Are services caring? – Requires Improvement

Are services responsive? – Good

Are services well-led? - Good

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Your Health Partnership - Whiteheath Medical Centre on 11 April 2018 as part of our inspection programme.

At this inspection we found:

• There was an open and transparent approach to safety and a system in place for reporting and recording significant events. However, some staff told us that learning was not always shared with them.
• There were systems to minimise risks to patient safety. However, the landlord who carried out some health and safety risk assessments had not shared these with the service.
• The practice had upskilled administration staff to process hospital communications and to ensure appropriate coding. However, there was no clinical oversight of the process. .
• The practice routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided. This was reviewed in the centralised clinical quality and operations group (CQOG) meetings.
• The practice ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence- based guidelines. Audits we looked at demonstrated this.
• Feedback received from patients on the day and from comment cards showed that patients were treated with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect. However, patient feedback through the national patient survey feedback was that they were not always involved in decisions about their care during consultations.
• Some patients told us that they found it difficult to get through on the telephone and the practice was working with the CCG to implement a new telephone system.
• The practice was a partnership of six locations and the management and leadership structure was clear and available to staff. Staff felt supported by management.
• We saw evidence that the practice proactively sought feedback from staff and patients, which it acted on. For example, patients with multiple long term conditions were managed in a single appointment and this was developed through feedback from nursing staff.
• There was a strong focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels of the organisation.

The areas where the provider must make improvements are:

• Ensure care and treatment is provided in a safe way to patients.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Review process for making appointments to provide easy access for patients.
• Effective communication should be established to ensure all learning such as those related to incidents are shared with all staff.
• Consider how patient feedback from the national survey could be improved particularly in relation to the experience of their consultations with specific clinicians.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP
Chief Inspector of General Practice