Archived: Crocus Medical Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Crocus Medical Practice on 18 July 2017. The overall rating for the practice was requires improvement. The full comprehensive report on the July 2018 inspection can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Crocus Medical Practice on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

This inspection was an announced comprehensive inspection carried out on 6 March 2018 to confirm that the practice had carried out their plan to meet the legal requirements in relation to the breaches in regulations that we identified in our previous inspection on 18 July 2017. This report covers our findings in relation to those requirements and also additional improvements made since our last inspection.

Overall the practice is now rated as good.

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

As part of our inspection process, we also look at the quality of care for specific population groups. The population groups are rated as:

Older People – Good

People with long-term conditions – Good

Families, children and young people – Good

Working age people (including those recently retired and students – Good

People whose circumstances may make them vulnerable – Good

People experiencing poor mental health (including people with dementia) - Good

Our key findings were as follows:

• Significant improvements had been made since our previous inspection.
• There was now a system to respond, action and review Medicine and Health products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) alerts.
• Medicines were kept safely, including those that required cold storage.
• Patients who were prescribed high risk medicines were receiving appropriate monitoring and review.
• The practice had not carried out an appropriate risk assessment to identify all emergency medicines that it should stock at both locations, although relevant medicines were acquired immediately after our inspection.
• Recruitment checks were effective and sought to ensure that staff were appropriately appointed. This was the case for permanent staff and locum GPs.
• The practice maintained a register of patients with learning disabilities. There were 42 patients on the register. There had been 25 health checks of patients with learning disabilities carried out in the last year. We saw that the remainder of patients were being actively recalled.
• Governance procedures had improved and were effective at identifying and mitigating risks to patients.
• The practice had clear systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. When incidents did happen, the practice learned from them and improved their processes.
• The practice routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided. It ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence- based guidelines.
• Staff involved and treated patients with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
• Patients found the appointment system easy to use and reported that they were able to access care when they needed it.
• There was a strong focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels of the organisation.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice