Archived: Dr Santamaria Medical Practice

This practice is rated as requires improvement overall.

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? – Inadequate

Are services effective? – Requires improvement

Are services caring? – Good

Are services responsive? – Good

Are services well-led? – Requires Improvement

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Dr Santamaria Medical Practice on 20 April 2018 as part of our inspection programme.

At this inspection we found:

• The practice had did not have clear systems to manage risks to patient safety; particularly in relation to medicines management and dealing with medical emergencies.
• We found there were poor governance practices which meant safety systems and processes did not minimise risks relating to infection prevention and control, suitable staffing, arrangements for dealing with medical emergencies, medicines management, and acting on and learning from external safety events as well as patient and medicine safety alerts.
• The practice did not routinely review the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided.
• Staff involved and treated patients with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
• Patients found the appointment system easy to use. However, some patients reported that they were not able to access care when they needed it.
• There were arrangements in place to support continuous learning and improvement for staff at all levels, but these were not consistently effective.

The areas where the provider must make improvements as they are in breach of regulations are:

• Ensure care and treatment is provided in a safe way to patients.
• Ensure systems and processes are established and operated effectively to ensure compliance with the requirements of good governance.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Review their arrangements for the identification of patients with caring responsibilities so they can provide and signpost them to appropriate support

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