Streatfield Surgery

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection on Streatfield Surgery on the 18 November 2015. At the time, we found the practice was breaching legal requirements in relation to its recruitment and training and equipment and medicines check. The practice was rated as requires improvement for providing safe care. Following the comprehensive inspection, the practice submitted an action plan, outlining what they would do to ensure the care they provided was safe and met the legal standard required by CQC.

We undertook this focussed inspection on 1 September 2016 to check that the practice had followed their plan and to confirm that they were now providing safe care. This inspection did not include a visit to the practice. This report covers our findings in relation to those requirements and also where additional improvements have been made following the initial inspection. You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Streatfield Surgery on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Overall the practice was rated as Good.

Following the focussed inspection we found the practice to be good for providing safe care.

Our key findings across all the areas we inspected were as follows:

• The practice had carried out an electrical appliance test in September 2016, to ensure all electrical equipment were safe to use.
• The practice had implemented a fridge temperature log for all fridges in the practice that stored medicines.
• The practice had a formal induction programme for newly appointed staff and a practice specific recruitment policy, which specified the recruitment checks which were required and these were in line with the relevant guidance.
• We saw newly appointed staff had pre-employment checks carried out as per guidance in Schedule 3, including written references and DBS checks (DBS checks identify whether a person has a criminal record or is on an official list of people barred from working in roles where they may have contact with children or adults who may be vulnerable).
• We saw evidence of clinical staff having completed basic life support training in the past 12 months. The practice also provided us with a documented risk assessment carried out in line with the national resuscitation council. This showed that non-clinical staff did not received annual basic life support training but they were trained to recognise cardiorespiratory arrest and would be able to get help from a clinical member of staff to carry out CPR.   
• We saw evidence that a fire risk assessment and infection control audit was carried out by the GP partners and management team for the practice in the last 12 months. We saw any actions identified were recorded and documented to show improvements had been made.
• The practice provided us with a sample of staff meeting minutes, which showed discussions that took place in meetings including outcomes and actions.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP 

Chief Inspector of General Practice