The Care Quality Commission
  • Doctor
  • GP practice

Archived: Dr Christopher Anthony Grainger Stern Also known as Carepoint Practice

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

Northwood Health Centre, Neal Close, Acre Way, Northwood, Middlesex, HA6 1TQ (01923) 820866

Provided and run by:
Dr Christopher Anthony Grainger Stern

Important: The provider of this service changed. See new profile

All Inspections

7 April 2015

During a routine inspection

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Dr Christopher Anthony Grainger Stern also known as Carepoint Practice on 7 April 2015.

Specifically, we found the practice to be good for providing safe, effective, caring, responsive and well- led services. It was good for providing services for older people, people with long term conditions, families, children and young people, working age people, people whose circumstances may make them vulnerable and people experiencing poor mental health.

Our key findings across all the areas we inspected were as follows:

  • Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns and to report incidents and near misses.
  • There were processes in place to safeguard vulnerable adults and children.
  • Patients’ needs were assessed and care was delivered following best practice guidance.
  • Staff had received training appropriate to their roles and any further training needs had been identified and planned through personal development plans.
  • Patients said they were treated with kindness, care and respect and they were involved in decisions about their care and treatment.
  • Patients were generally satisfied with the appointment system and found it easy to make an appointment.
  • Staff felt that the practice was very supportive of training and that they had staff away days where guest speakers and trainers attended.
  • The practice learned from patient experiences, concerns and complaints to improve the quality of care.

However there were areas of practice where the provider needs to make improvements.

The provider should:

  • Review the refrigerator temperature monitoring record log to ensure that all relevant data is captured and that dates of checks are recorded.
  • Review the child protection policy to ensure that the information is up to date.
  • Ensure that information about the practice opening hours is consistent in the literature available to patients.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP

Chief Inspector of General Practice

1 September 2014

During a routine inspection

Dr Christopher Anthony Grainger Stern, also known as Carepoint Practice, provides primary medical services for patients in the Hillingdon and Uxbridge area.

We carried out an announced inspection of the service on 1 September 2014. We found the practice was safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led in many areas that we inspected. However we also found there were areas that needed improvements.

The way patient’s paper based records were stored was not safe or secure and could be accessed by unauthorised members of staff.

The practice was providing a high number of telephone consultations to meet patient demand for access. Patients had given mixed views about this service. There was no audit planned or completed to evaluate the treatment and diagnosis given during telephone consultations to understand how effective this was and what improvements could be made.

The practice had comprehensive safeguarding policies and procedures in place to protect vulnerable patients. There were systems in place to manage health and safety checks regularly. Staff were trained appropriately and received support from the management team as required.

Patients gave mixed views about their experiences with the practice and the evidence we looked at showed both positive and negative comments.

The practice had a system in place for handling complaints and concerns, however this needed improvements. Patients were referred to speak to the practice manager to make a formal complaint. However, complaint forms were not available in the waiting area and there was no information on where to get help completing a complaint for patients that may be vulnerable or where English was not their spoken language.

We found that the practice was not meeting two regulations required to ensure that standards of quality and safety were maintained. This was in relation to managing complaints and storing records. We have asked the practice to send us a report, setting out the action they will take to meet these safety standards. We will check to make sure that action is taken. 

Please note that when referring to information throughout this report, for example any reference to the Quality and Outcomes Framework data, this relates to the most recent information available to the CQC at that time.