We carried out a review of the data available to us about Otford Medical Practice on 6 July 2023. We have not found evidence that we need to carry out an inspection or reassess our rating at this stage.
This could change at any time if we receive new information. We will continue to monitor data about this service.
If you have concerns about Otford Medical Practice, you can give feedback on this service.
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Otford Medical Practice on 24 January 2019 as part of our inspection programme.
We based our judgement of the quality of care at this service on a combination of:
We have rated this practice as good overall and good for all population groups.
We found that:
Whilst we found no breaches of regulations, the provider should:
Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.
Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP
Chief Inspector of General Practice
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Otford Medical Practice on 6 August 2015. The provider operated another branch practice within the same area that was not part of this inspection. Overall the practice is rated as good.
Please note that when referring to information throughout this report, for example any reference to the Quality and Outcomes Framework data, this relates to the most recent information available to the CQC at that time.
Our key findings across all the areas we inspected were as follows:
However there were areas of practice where the provider needs to make improvements.
Importantly the provider should:
Chief Inspector of General Practice
Otford Medical Practice is a GP practice providing primary care services for around 10,500 patients.
There are six partners in the practice, three of whom work full-time and three who work part-time. There is also two part-time salaried GPs. The partners are supported by a practice manager, a nursing team of four registered nurses and a health care assistant.
The main practice is in the village of Otford and there is a branch surgery in the neighbouring village of Kemsing – Kemsing Village Surgery.
We only visited the main site in Otford for this inspection.
As part of the inspection we talked with the local Clinical Commissioning Group, the local Healthwatch, a representative of the Patient Participation Group, patients who were at the practice on the day of the inspection, GPs, other clinical and non-clinical staff at the practice.
All of the patients we spoke with were very positive about the care and treatment they received and they were complimentary about the staff at the practice. We received positive comments from patients who had completed comment cards prior to our inspection visit. Most of these stated that they were happy with the support, care and treatment provided all staff. Patients told us they experienced difficulties in booking appointments via the telephone system in use at the practice. This was also highlighted in the patient survey in 2013. The management team of the practice has recognised this as an issue and are researching how this element of the practice can be improved.
We found that the practice was well-led and provided caring, effective, and responsive services to a wide range of patient population groups, including those of working age and recently retired, mothers with babies, young children, and young patients, older patients (over 75), patients with long-term conditions, people in vulnerable circumstances and those patients experiencing mental health problems.
We had concerns about safeguarding as non clinical staff did not have criminal records checks via the Disclosure and Barring Services (DBS) and no risk assessments were in place as to why this decision had been made.