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Archived: Parkside Medical Practice

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

Parkside Medical Practice, Park View Centre, Chester Road North, Brownhills, Walsall, West Midlands, WS8 7JG (01922) 604510

Provided and run by:
Parkside Medical Practice

All Inspections

7 June 2017

During an inspection looking at part of the service

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Parkside Medical Practice on 18 October 2016. The overall rating for the practice was requires improvement. The full comprehensive report on the September 2016 inspection can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Parkside Medical Practice on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

This inspection was an announced focused inspection carried out on 7 June 2017 to confirm that the practice had carried out their plan to meet the legal requirements in relation to the breaches in regulations that we identified in our previous inspection on 18 October 2017. This report covers our findings in relation to those requirements and also additional improvements made since our last inspection.

Overall the practice is now rated as good.

Our key findings were as follows:

  • At our previous inspection, we found variations across systems for reporting and investigating significant events. At this inspection, we saw that the practice operated an effective system for reporting and recording significant events. Records showed that the practice had responded and learned from safety incidents.
  • Effective systems were now in place for receiving and acting on alerts from the Medical and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

  • At our October 2016 inspection, we found the management of medicines was not effective. During this inspection we found the practice had strengthened their use of medicine management templates to ensure medicines were being monitored according to guideline recommendation.

  • When we carried out our previous inspection, we saw that some systems and processes were not effective. At this inspection, we saw the management of risks, monitoring of training needs, clinicians registration with professional bodies and indemnity cover had improved.

  • At this inspection, we found that training needs had been addressed and there was evidence of appraisals and personal development plans for staff members.

  • The practice had a number of policies and procedures to govern activity. Since the previous inspection staff had access to all practice policies. Oversight of procedures had improved since the previous inspection. As a result, a number of processes were being operated effectively.

In addition the provider should:

  • Continue to consider ways of encouraging the uptake of national screening programmes such as bowel and breast cancer.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

18 October 2016

During a routine inspection

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Parkside Medical Practice on 18 October 2016. Overall, the practice is rated as requires improvement.

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. However, reviews and investigations were not thorough enough. Some completed incident recording forms did not demonstrate that people were told about any actions to improve processes to prevent the same thing happening again.
  • Some risks to patients were assessed and well managed. However, systems for managing patient safety alerts, recording the monitoring of high risk medicines; checking clinicians’ registrations and indemnity cover, nurse’s professional memberships and risk assessing staff who had not receive appropriate immunity status checks were not well managed. Following the inspection the practice provided documentations to evidence where they had reviewed the practice systems.
  • Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance. Staff had been trained to provide them with the skills, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care and treatment in most areas. Following the inspection the practice provided documents to demonstrate that some additional training had been completed
  • Staff received yearly appraisals; however, the practice did not provide documentation to evidence how staff competencies had been reviewed during and after role specific inductions.
  • Although the practice held clinical meetings, documents viewed did not demonstrate that they were occurring regularly and evidence of actions required or completed as a result of meeting discussions were limited.
  • During the inspection staff were able to demonstrate where the practice had worked with other health care professionals. Although performance related to the uptake of childhood vaccinations for under two year olds were below CCG and national averages staff explained actions taken to support the increase of uptake.
  • Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment. During the inspection staff were seen to be treating patients with kindness and respect, and maintained patient and information confidentiality.
  • Information about in-house and community based services was available. The practice held a variety of well-attended health awareness events and information evenings to raise awareness of health conditions and the verity of support services available.
  • Details of how to complain was available and easy to understand. Improvements were made to the quality of care as a result of complaints and concerns.
  • Patients said they found it easy to make an appointment with a named GP and there was continuity of care, with urgent appointments available the same day.
  • The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
  • There were areas where the governance structure and systems was not effectively operated. For example, the management and implementation of systems, policies and processes did not ensure that they were always well established or effectively operated.
  • There was a leadership structure and staff felt supported by management. The practice proactively sought feedback from staff and patients, which it acted on.
  • The provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the duty of candour.

The areas where the provider must make improvement are:

  • The practice must establish and operate effective systems and processes. For example, the practice must operate effective systems for managing incidents, recording the completion of medicine reviews, sharing safety alerts, maintaining accurate patient records and ensuring adequate indemnity cover are in place for clinicians.

  • Establish an effective system for monitoring and ensuring staff have received identified training to enable them to fulfil the requirements’ of their role. Implement an effective system to monitor and review staff competencies during and after induction.

The areas where the provider should make improvement are:

  • Ensure an effective employee immunisation programme is in place for staff who handles clinical specimens or carry out an appropriate risk assessment to mitigate risks.

  • Establish an effective system for checking clinicians’ registrations, and nurses’ professional memberships.

  • Continue to explore ways of improving the uptake of childhood immunisations.

  • The practice should ensure that business continuity plans are well embedded and staff are aware of the content and where to access the plan.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

21 May 2014

During an inspection looking at part of the service

We previously inspected Parkside Medical Practice on 18th December 2013. At the time we found that there was no policy or training in place for protecting vulnerable adults. We judged that this had a minor impact on patients who used the service. We also found that there was no policy in place for the recruitment of staff. In the absence of a robust policy all necessary employment checks had not been completed. We judged that this had a moderate impact on patients who used the service.

We set compliance actions and told the provider to improve. The provider sent us an action plan following our visit which recorded the actions taken to address the issues raised.

We gave short notice of this inspection so that any disruption to people's care and treatment were minimised. We spoke with the practice manager and were introduced to two other administration staff. We found that the provider had made the necessary improvements.

We saw a copy of the adult safeguarding policy and evidence that safeguarding of vulnerable adults had been discussed at staff meetings.

We saw that systems were now in place to ensure that employment checks would be completed before people commenced their employment at the medical practice.

18 December 2013

During a routine inspection

We visited the practice to establish that the needs of patients were being met. On the day of the inspection we spoke with six patients, four staff members, a GP and the practice manager. The patients we spoke with were all complimentary about the service. One patient said: 'The staff here are very good'.

Patients told us that they received care, treatment and support that met their needs. They told us that the clinical staff at the practice took time to explain their treatment.

There was a policy in place for protecting children and staff training had been completed. However there was no policy or training in place for protecting vulnerable adults.

There was no policy in place for the recruitment of staff. In the absence of a robust policy all necessary employment checks had not been completed.

Systems were in place for monitoring the quality of the service provided at the practice. A complaints process was in place to allow patients to feedback their views.