Battersea Fields Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Battersea Fields Practice during 17-19 October 2023. Overall, the practice is rated good.

Safe - good

Effective - good

Caring - good

Responsive - good

Well-led - good

Following our previous inspection on 24 February 2016, the practice was rated good overall and for all key questions. The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Battersea Fields Practice on our website at www.cqc.org.uk

Why we carried out this inspection

We carried out this inspection in line with our inspection priorities.

This was a comprehensive inspection to review the following domains:

• Safe
• Effective
• Caring
• Responsive
• Well Led

How we carried out the inspection

This inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to spend a minimum amount of time on site.

This included:

• Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing.

• Completing clinical searches on the practice’s patient records system (this was with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements).
• Reviewing patient records to identify issues and clarify actions taken by the provider.
• Requesting evidence from the provider.
• A short site visit.

Our findings

We based our judgement of the quality of care at this service on a combination of:

• what we found when we inspected
• information from our ongoing monitoring of data about services and
• information from the provider, patients, the public and other organisations.

We found that:

• The practice provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm.
• The practice was actively involved in engaging with the local community and implementing new ways of working, for example having a community health and wellbeing workers directly going out into the community and communicating with patients.
• The practice was pivotal in developing and setting up the Battersea Youth Clinic.
• Battersea Fields Practice had successfully taken over the clinical care of a large care home and had received positive feedback about the care and management it provided.
• Clinical searches found patients receiving high-risk medicines, such as methotrexate, received appropriate monitoring.
• Staff were positive about working at the practice.
• Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs.
• Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
• Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.
• The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centre care.

Whilst we found no breaches of regulations, the provider should:

• Continue to improve the uptake for childhood immunisation and of cervical cancer screening.
• Continue to look at ways to improve patient satisfaction data in relation to access.

Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

Chief Inspector of Health Care