Queenhill Medical Practice

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

This practice is rated as Good overall. (Previous inspection September 2015 – Good)

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? – Good

Are services effective? – Good

Are services caring? – Good

Are services responsive? – Good

Are services well-led? - Good

As part of our inspection process, we also look at the quality of care for specific population groups. The population groups are rated as:

Older People – Good

People with long-term conditions – Good

Families, children and young people – Good

Working age people (including those recently retired and students – Good

People whose circumstances may make them vulnerable – Good

People experiencing poor mental health (including people with dementia) - Good

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Queenhill Medical Practice on 9 January 2018, as part of our inspection programme.

At this inspection we found:

• The practice had clear systems to keep patients safe and safeguarded from abuse.
• 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. However, we found that there were some incidents that the practice had not reviewed as significant events when it might have been beneficial to do so.
• There were established safety systems. Most of the safety systems that had been established were monitored and were working well, leading to improvements were required. There were some systems that were not working as effectively. When we raised these with the practice, we were told of action taken to ensure that these safety systems were effective.
• The practice routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided. It ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence- based guidelines. The practice generally performed well against local and national averages and targets.
• Staff involved and treated patients with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
• Patients found the appointment system easy to use and reported that they were able to access care when they needed it.
• There was a strong focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels of the organisation.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Review monitoring of all safety systems to ensure they are effective.
• Review how to ensure that all incidents that would benefit from review as significant events are identified.
• Consider how to improve uptake of cervical screening.
• Review how patients with caring responsibilities are identified and recorded on the clinical system to ensure information, advice and support is made available to them.