Hastings House Medical Centre provides primary medical services for a local population of approximately 10,500 patients in the local area. A branch surgery is also provided at Little Thatch in Kineton. As part of our inspection we visited Hastings House. We spoke with seventeen patients including two members of the virtual patient group, clinical and administrative staff. This included four GPs and both the business and practice managers.
All the patients that we spoke with during our inspection were very complimentary about the service they received. The service performed well against quality outcomes relating to patient care. Patients described a caring service in which they were treated with dignity and respect, they felt listened to and received a good continuation of care from practice.
The practice was responsive to the needs of patients. Patients with urgent needs were able to access the surgery when they needed to and arrangements were in place to ensure those with chronic or complex health needs were prioritised. Referrals to other health care providers had been made in a timely way.
We found an open and supportive culture at the practice. Staff had opportunities for personal development and felt able to raise issues or concerns with senior staff. Patients felt listened to and comments raised were acted upon. The practice had identified risks and developed a business plan to address an expected increase in demand for the service due to to a new housing development in the locality.
We were concerned about the lack of robust governance arrangements at the practice to ensure information and learning from incidents and complaints was disseminated among all staff as appropriate and in a consistent way. Formal opportunities for staff to discuss issues relating to their role were not clearly defined. Some of the policies and procedures required review so they reflected current practice and local arrangements for staff to follow. We found recruitment processes were not robust and monitoring arrangements were not always effective in identifying issues relating to safe care. We have therefore identified this as an area for improvement.
Services were available to all population groups with the main strength being the consistency of care provided to patients from the same GP.