We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Northumberland Park Medical Group, Shiremoor Resource Centre on 28 April 2021 to follow up on breaches of regulations identified at a previous inspection on 6 March 2020. Following our previous inspection on 6 March 2020, the practice was rated Requires Improvement overall and for the key questions of Safe, Responsive and Well led and Good for the key questions of Effective and Caring.
At this inspection we found that the practice had made many improvements and is now rated as Good overall.
The key questions are rated as follows,
Safe - Good
Effective - Good
Caring - Good
Responsive - Good
Well-led - Good
The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Northumberland Park Medical Group, Shiremoor Resource Centre on our website at www.cqc.org.uk
Why we carried out this inspection
This inspection was a comprehensive inspection to follow up on:
- Breaches of regulations or ‘shoulds’ identified in the previous inspection
- Ratings carried forward from previous inspection
How we carried out the inspection
Throughout the pandemic CQC has continued to regulate and respond to risk. However, taking into account the circumstances arising as a result of the pandemic, and in order to reduce risk, we have conducted our inspections differently.
This inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to spend a minimum amount of time on site. This was with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements.
This included:
- Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing.
- Completing clinical searches on the practice’s patient records system and discussing findings with the provider.
- Reviewing patient records to identify issues and clarify actions taken by the provider.
- Requesting evidence from the provider.
- Remote staff questionnaires.
- A short site visit.
Our findings
We based our judgement of the quality of care at this service on a combination of:
- what we found when we inspected
- information from our ongoing monitoring of data about services and
- information from the provider, patients, the public and other organisations.
We have rated this practice as Good overall and good for all population groups.
We found that:
- The practice provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm.
- Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs.
- Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
- The practice adjusted how it delivered services to meet the needs of patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.
- The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centre care.
Whilst we found no breaches of regulations, the provider should:
- Improve their approach to monitoring by instituting a regular audit cycle for compliance with Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency alerts
- Review and improve child protection records with regard to clearer flagging of child protection on records, more detail on the home page and reviews to check that obsolete flags are removed
- Take steps to improve the monitoring of patients’ in relation to the use of medicines, including high risk medicines, where this is required.
- Review and improve the documentation and recording of what is included in a medication review
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