The Andover Health Centre Medical Practice

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

The provider had made improvements to systems and processes following our last assessment and is no longer in breach of 2 regulations related to safe care and treatment and safe staffing. At this assessment we found:

Safety was now a priority at the service. Incidents were identified, investigated, and learning was shared with all staff reducing the likelihood of recurrence in the future.

Staff and leaders had a strong understanding of safeguarding and there were effective systems and processes to ensure vulnerable patients could be flagged to staff and system partners.

Recruitment processes were effective and the requirements of legislation were now followed when staff were recruited.

Leadership had effective oversight of staff training compliance which supported staff to have the required skills, knowledge and experience to carry out their roles.

Staff received protected time for training and continued to have dedicated time for clinical supervision to support them to carry out and develop in their roles.

Patients with long-term conditions now received structured annual reviews of their conditions and prescribed medicines.

The approach to monitoring patients prescribed medicines, including high risk medicines, had improved and now reflected national guidance and best practice. Prescribing was carried out safely and based on up to date and accurate information about patients’ health.

The service had systems and processes to manage patient safety alerts from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

The summarisation of patients notes was now addressed in a timely manner and management had oversight to ensure backlogs did not occur.

This service scored 75 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

Significant events were routinely identified. Staff were encouraged and supported to raise significant events. Policies and processes ensured they were effectively recorded and investigated. Incidents were now discussed at practice meetings ensuring learning outcomes were shared with staff. All staff we spoke with were able to provide an example of a recent significant event. Incidents were shared with stakeholders to help the wider system learn from incidents occurring in the practice.

The complaints process ensured complaints could be made via the most convenient communication method for the patient. The process now ensured learning from complaints was shared throughout the practice. We sampled 2 complaints and found the complaints procedure had been followed, the responses were open and honest, and the complaints had been discussed at a whole staff meeting for awareness and shared learning.

We did not look at Safe systems, pathways and transitions during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Safe.

Safeguarding vulnerable patients was a priority. The practice identified and flagged vulnerable patients within their clinical system. This ensured information could be shared throughout the practice. National guidance was followed when selecting training requirements. We sampled safeguarding training records for a random sample of staff. All were up to date and were now trained to the correct level. The practice worked with stakeholders and system partners to protect vulnerable patients. All staff we spoke with were confident about identifying safeguarding concerns and the action they would take if they had any concerns.

We did not look at Involving people to manage risks during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Safe.

We did not look at Safe environments during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Safe.

The recruitment policy remained in line with the requirements of legislation. We sampled staff recruitment records and found all had been recruited according to the policy. This included risk assessments for staff that did not require Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks.

The practice had established policies and processes to ensure staff had the necessary skills, knowledge and experience to carry out their roles. Sampling of staff training records found all staff were up to date with training. Our conversations with staff confirmed arrangements were in place to ensure protected time for training was available for all roles.

There were now sufficient staff in all roles and where a skills gap existed, management had oversight and short-term cover arrangements were in place until staff completed training.

Appraisal and clinical supervision processes were in place and staff we spoke with told us these processes were supportive and effective.

We did not look at Infection prevention and control during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Safe.

The practice now followed national guidance when prescribing high risk medicines and medicines which required monitoring. Our assessment included remote searches of the practice’s clinical system by a GP specialist advisor (SpA) who reviewed the care provided to patients with long term conditions and those prescribed high risk medicines. Our GP SpA found no concerns with the care provided to these patient groups who were all being appropriately managed.

Our GP SpA reviewed a random sample of medicine reviews and found these were structured and contained the required information which allowed staff to plan care and treatment for patients.

Our remote clinical searches also found the practice now had embedded systems and processes to act on patient safety alerts received from the MHRA.

The practice had cleared the previously identified backlog of patient notes requiring summarisation and current staff had protected time to complete this work. Additional staff had been identified to support this work and were booked onto future training courses to support them to gain the appropriate skills and knowledge for the role.

National guidance had been followed when choosing the items of emergency equipment and medicine to stock. The practice now had an embedded system for monitoring the stock levels and expiration dates.

We reviewed arrangements for storing medicines requiring refrigeration and found that medicines were stored securely. Systems and processes existed to ensure temperatures were monitored and appropriate action was taken if temperatures went outside of recommended ranges.

We found the practice had an effective system to manage incoming pathology results for patients and there were no backlogs of results at the time of the assessment.