We carried out a review of the data available to us about Warders Medical Centre 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 Warders Medical Centre, you can give feedback on this service.
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Warders Medical Centre on 3 December 2019. The practice was rated as Good overall and rated as Requires Improvement for providing safe services and Good for providing effective, caring, responsive and well-led services. Breaches of regulation were identified.
We rated the practice as requires improvement for providing safe services because:
We undertook this desk based follow-up review on 5 October 2020, as part of our inspection programme and to check the practice had met the regulatory requirements, as well as followed their own action plan to ensure safe services were being provided. Based on the documentary and photographic evidence provided, we have rated the practice as Good for providing safe services.
We also checked that the provider had continued to ensure they had acted to address the areas where we told them they should make improvements. The provider sent us documentary evidence to confirm that since our inspection in December 2019, the practice had:
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Warders Medical Centre on our website at .
Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.
Dr Rosie Bennyworth BS BMedSci MRCGP
Chief Inspector of General Practice
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Warders Medical Centre on 3 December 2019 as part of our inspection programme.
We decided to undertake an inspection of this service following our annual review of the information available to us. This inspection looked at the following key questions:
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 for the key questions with the exception of safe which was rated as requires improvement. We rated them as good for all the population groups.
We rated the practice as requires improvement for providing safe services because:
We rated the practice as good for providing effective services because:
We rated the practice as good for providing caring services because:
We rated the practice as good for providing responsive services because:
We rated the practice as good for providing well-led services because:
The areas where the provider must make improvements are:
The provider should:
Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.
Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP
Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Warders Medical Centre on 28 July 2016. Overall the practice is rated as good.
Our key findings across all the areas we inspected were as follows:
Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns and report incidents and near misses. All opportunities for learning from internal and external incidents were maximised.
Risks to patients were assessed and well managed.
Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance. Staff had been trained to provide them with the skills, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care and treatment.
Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.
Information about services and how to complain was available and easy to understand. Improvements were made to the quality of care as a result of complaints and concerns.
Patients said they found it easy to make an appointment with a named GP and there was continuity of care, with urgent appointments available the same day.
The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
The practice had a clear vision which had quality and safety as its top priority. The strategy to deliver this vision had been produced with stakeholders and was regularly reviewed and discussed with all staff.
The practice had strong and visible clinical and managerial leadership and governance arrangements.
The provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the duty of candour.
We saw areas of outstanding practice:
The lead GP had established a system to help ensure that contact with school staff assigned to children on the ‘at risk’ register, were routinely reviewed. Documentary evidence showed that meetings were held with the schools leads for safeguarding at the beginning of each term. There were also arrangements for the lead GPs to liaise with the specialist educational needs co-ordinator (SENCO) at a local primary school.
A protocol had been implemented by the practice to ensure that monthly searches by the prescribing office at the practice included the underuse of medicines and a code being added to patient’s records when poor compliance had been noted. Where patients had a diagnosis of memory loss or dementia, GPs were prompted (via the computer system) to review patients prescribed medicines and where appropriate, to consider alternative means of dispensing the medicines.
Where patients experienced poor mental health and did not attend (DNA) for appointments, the practice had a protocol for ensuring the patients well-being. We saw examples of the practice having reviewed patient’s notes following a DNA and where there was cause for concern (indicated in previous consultations), the practice contacted the patient. If contact had not been made, there was a protocol for informing other agencies.
The practice had exceptional IT systems and protocols to ensure patients were safeguarded against risks. Computer system work streams had been incorporated into the software package used by the practice, which followed a review of significant events, complaints and safety alerts received by the practice.
The areas where the provider should make improvement are:
Continue to ensure that systems, processes and practices keep patients safe in relation to infection control and prevention.
Continue to ensure that routine checks for the safe storage of medicines are risk assessed, recorded and maintained.
Continue to ensure that obtaining Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks for staff who act as chaperones.
Continue to ensure the business continuity plan (disaster recovery plan) is kept up to date.
Continue to improve the system that identifies patients who are also carers to help ensure that all patients on the practice list who are carers are offered relevant support if required.
Continue to improve the system for monitoring and reviewing practice policies and procedure, to help ensure there is a consistent approach in how they are maintained between the two practices.
Chief Inspector of General Practice
Warders Medical Centre is located in the heart of Tonbridge, East Street, Tonbridge, Kent TN9 1LA and also has a dispensing branch surgery in Penhurst. The practice currently provides primary medical services to 18160 patients. There has been medical services provided from this site for nearly 200 years. The practice team consists of eight GP partners, salaried GP, nurses, a practice manager and reception and administration team. The practice has an active Patient Participation Group (PPG), which has been running for over four years.
This was the first inspection since registration. The announced inspection at Warders Medical Centre took place on 16 May 2014. We spoke with 10 patients including the chairman of the Patient Participation Group (PPG).