We carried out a review of the data available to us about The Whitfield Practice on 6 July 2023. We have not found evidence that we need to carry out an inspection or reassess our rating at this stage.
This could change at any time if we receive new information. We will continue to monitor data about this service.
If you have concerns about The Whitfield Practice, you can give feedback on this service.
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at The Whitfield Practice on 7 March 2019 as part of our inspection programme.
At the last inspection on 29 March 2018 we rated the practice as requires improvement overall, with ratings of requires improvement for the domains of safe, effective and well-led. The full comprehensive report regarding the March 2018 inspection can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for The Whitfield Practice on our website at
The practice was rated as requires improvement for providing safe, effective and well-led services because:
At this inspection, we found that the provider had satisfactorily addressed all the areas of concern which had been raised at the previous inspection.
We based our judgement of the quality of care at this service using a combination of what we found when we inspected, information from our ongoing monitoring of data about services and
information from the provider, patients, public and other organisations.
We have now rated this practice as good overall and good for all population groups.
We found that:
Whilst we found no breaches of regulations, the provider should:
Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence table.
Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP
Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care
This practice is rated as Requires Improvement overall. (Previous inspection October 2014 rated as Good)
The key questions are rated as:
Are services safe? – Requires improvement
Are services effective? – Requires Improvement
Are services caring? – Good
Are services responsive? – Good
Are services well-led? – Requires Improvement
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 – Requires improvement
People with long-term conditions – Requires improvement
Families, children and young people – Requires improvement
Working age people (including those recently retired and students) – Requires improvement
People whose circumstances may make them vulnerable – Requires improvement
People experiencing poor mental health (including people living with dementia) - Requires improvement
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at The Whitfield Practice on 29 March 2018 as part of our inspection programme.
At this inspection we found:
The practice had some systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen, for example, when incidents did happen, the practice learned from them and improved their processes. However, the practice had not completed risk assessments in relation to health and safety matters and had not assured themselves staff had completed training in these areas.
Recruitment procedures had not been consistently implemented and not all the required checks had been completed prior to employment.
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.
The practice had faced a number of challenges in the last 12 months and was aware improvements were required. They had reviewed their staffing provision to manage the significant partnership changes and the imminent retirement of the practice manager. They had employed a clinical pharmacist partner and staff were moving in to new roles to address this. Staff had, and were continuing to, work hard to ensure the impact on patients was minimised during the changes.
The practice made use of internal and external reviews of incidents and complaints. Learning was shared and used to make improvements.
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 persons employed in the provision of the regulated activity receive the appropriate support, training, professional development, supervision and appraisal necessary to enable them to carry out the duties.
Ensure recruitment procedures are established and operated effectively to ensure only fit and proper persons are employed.
The areas where the provider should make improvements are:
Review and improve systems to support duty of candour requirements.
Review and improve access to the records relating to the vaccine refrigerator temperatures to make all the data accessible to relevant staff.
Review and improve cover arrangements for administration processes when staff are on leave.
Review and formalise management arrangements and clinical overview of information received about patients who have attended out of hours and accident and emergency services.
Review and improve management oversight of medical alerts.
Review and improve the security of blank prescriptions held in consulting rooms.
Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP
Chief Inspector of General Practice
The Whitfield Practice is situated in the Hunslet area of Leeds. It provides a range of primary care services including access to General Practitioners (GPs), minor surgery, family planning, ante and post natal care to approximately 7700 patients from its surgery at the Hunslet Health Centre on Church Street Leeds. The practice has six GPs, two practice nurses, two health care assistants, a practice manager and other reception and administrative staff.
The practice is registered with the Care Quality Commission to the regulated activities:
We inspected this service on 15 October 2014 as part of our new comprehensive inspection programme. As a result of that inspection we rated the practice as Good.
We rated the practice as good for the quality of care it provided to the six population groups that we examined. These include older people, people with long term conditions, families with children and young people, working age people, people whose circumstances make them vulnerable and people experiencing poor mental health. The practice ethos is to strive towards a partnership between patients and health professionals based on mutual respect, holistic care and continuity of care. All staff in the practice demonstrated how the needs of different groups of patients were considered and appropriate care provided. The comment cards that were completed by patients prior to our visit and patients interviewed on the day were all complimentary of the quality of care they received and several commented on how they felt the GPs were very caring.
We rated the practice as good for how effective and caring its services are and for safety, responsiveness and how well led its services are. Our key findings were as follows:
However there are areas of practice where the provider should improve by:
Chief Inspector of General Practice