The Shaftesbury Medical Centre

On this page

• Overview
• Learning culture
• Safe systems, pathways and transitions
• Safeguarding
• Involving people to manage risks
• Safe environments
• Safe and effective staffing
• Infection prevention and control
• Medicines optimisation

We looked for evidence that people were protected from abuse and avoidable harm.

At our last assessment, we rated this key question as Good. At this assessment, the rating remains the same.

This service scored 69 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

The service had a proactive and positive culture of safety, based on openness and honesty. They listened to concerns about safety and investigated and reported safety events. Staff told us there was an open culture and they could approach leaders to discuss any concerns. Patients also felt supported to raise concerns and felt staff treated them with compassion and understanding. Representatives from the Patient Participation Group (PPG) felt the provider proactively made improvements to the service. During the on-site visit, from the meeting notes that we were presented with, we found that significant events were not always discussed. However, we were later presented with final drafts of documents which demonstrated the practice discussed and learnt from significant events during meetings. The practice had a system to record and investigate complaints.

The service worked with people and healthcare partners to establish and maintain safe systems of care, in which safety was managed or monitored. They made sure there was continuity of care, including when people moved between different services. There were systems in place for processing information relating to new patients. The service worked with other providers to deliver shared care and when patients moved between services. The practice had a system in place for the processing of laboratory results.

The service worked with people and healthcare partners to understand what being safe meant to them and the best way to achieve that. Safeguarding policies were in place and staff knew where to access this, however during our assessment we found that not all staff understood safeguarding procedures. We found that some staff did not have the required learning of safeguarding for their job role. This was actioned after the on-site visit and all staff were shown to be up-to date with their training. The practice maintained a list of vulnerable people however some adult patients did not have the appropriate alerts on the practice database.

During a follow-up call assessing safeguarding, we found that the practice did not have a safeguarding register for adults but did have one for children. Children on the electronic patient record system were found to have alerts on their records as well as links to those in the same household. We found examples of adults on the electronic patient record system who did not have alerts on their records.

The service worked with people to understand and manage risks. They provided care to meet people’s needs that was safe, supportive and enabled people to do the things that mattered to them. Emergency equipment was available and maintained. All staff demonstrated that they could recognise a deteriorating patient and knew what action to take.

The service detected and controlled potential risks in the care environment. They made sure equipment, facilities and technology supported the delivery of safe care. Contracts were in place to ensure the premises were maintained. Health and safety risk assessments and audits had been undertaken and risks identified had been addressed.

The service made sure staff had effective support, supervision and development. Staff worked together well to provide safe care that met people’s individual needs. However, we found gaps in training and recruitment files for some locum staff. We found gaps in training files for some salaried staff. The service, after the on-site inspection, provided evidence recruitment files were updated and that staff were up to date with their required training.

The service assessed and managed the risk of infection. They detected and controlled the risk of it spreading and shared concerns with appropriate agencies promptly. The practice had a designated infection, prevention and control lead who all staff were able to identify. Staff had completed their relevant infection prevention and control training. A Legionella risk assessment was also seen.

The service made sure that medicines and treatments were safe and met people’s needs, capacities and preferences. They involved people in planning, including when changes happened. People knew what to do and who to contact if their condition did not improve or they experienced any unexpected symptoms. During our remote clinical searches, we found that the provider had effective systems to manage and respond to safety alerts and medicine recalls. The provider had a medicines policy that outlined procedures for the safe prescribing, storage, administration, and disposal of medicines which was regularly reviewed in line with current guidance.