Aintree Park Group Practice

This practice is rated as Good overall. The practice was previously inspected on 15 October 2015 and rated good overall.

The key questions at this inspection are rated as:

Are services safe? – Requires Improvement

Are services effective? – Good

Are services caring? – Good

Are services responsive? –Good

Are services well-led? - Good

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Aintree Park Group Practice on 16 November 2018 as part of our inspection programme.

At this inspection we found that:

• Since our previous inspection, the practice had taken on approximately a further 2,000 patients. There had been changes to the governance and staffing structure to meet the demand.
• The practice had clear systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. When incidents did happen, the practice learned from them and improved their processes.
• There were gaps in the management of authorisations for vaccinations, risk assessments for emergency medicines and security of blank prescriptions. The practice advised us after the inspection that steps had been taken to remedy the shortfalls identified.
• The practice reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided by carrying out clinical audits but there was no schedule of clinical audits in place. It ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence-based guidelines. However, antibiotic prescribing rates were high and the practice had action plans in place to reduce this.
• Staff involved and treated patients with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
• Patients found the appointment system easy to use and reported that they could access care when they needed it, however the national GP patient survey outlined lower rates of satisfaction with telephone access. The practice was aware of this and had acted to try and improve telephone access.
• Information about services and how to complain was available. The practice sought patient views about improvements that could be made to the service. The practice had a well- established patient participation group (PPG).
• Staff worked well together as a team and all felt supported to carry out their roles.
• There was a strong leadership with a desire to use innovative approaches to deliver patient care. Staff morale was high and staff were encouraged at every level to be part of the forward planning of the practice. There was a strong focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels of the practice.
• The practice complied with the Duty of Candour.

However, the practice must:

• Ensure care and treatment is provided in a safe way to patients with regards to ensuring documents to authorise medicines are completed.

The practice should:

• Implement a system for monitoring the security of blank prescriptions for printers in the buildings.
• Carry out a risk assessment for how much oxygen is necessary to be stored on the premises and the emergency medicines in use.
• Continue to monitor antibiotic prescribing rates for all individual clinicians.
• Have a programme of scheduled clinical audits to monitor the effectiveness of care and treatment.
• Ensure the infection control lead receives additional training for their role.
• Carry out additional work to ensure the practice is complying with Accessible Information Standards.