The Care Quality Commission
  • Doctor
  • GP practice

Archived: The Northern Medical Centre

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

580 Holloway Road, Holloway, London, N7 6LB (020) 3316 1800

Provided and run by:
The Northern Medical Centre

Important: The provider of this service changed. See new profile

All Inspections

26 September 2019

During a routine inspection

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at The Northern Medical Centre on 26 September 2019.

We previously inspected the practice in April 2015, we rated the practice as Requires Improvement for providing a safe service and good for providing an effective, caring, responsive and well-led service. The practice was rated as good overall. Included amongst the issues we identified, the practice did not have suitable arrangements in place to check the expiry dates of emergency medicines, suitable arrangements were not in place for the storage of clinical waste whilst awaiting collection and there were not cleaning schedules in place for hand held clinical equipment such as ear syringe, nebuliser and spirometer. The practice was issued with a requirement notice for Regulation 12 HSCA (RA) Regulations 2014, safe care and treatment.

We carried out a focused inspection on 26 November 2015 to confirm the practice had carried out their plan to meet the legal requirements in relation to the breach in regulation we identified in our previous inspection. At the inspection on 26 November 2015, we rated the practice good for providing a safe service and good overall as we found that the issues previously identified had been addressed and the requirement notice had been fulfilled.

At this inspection 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.

We found that:

  • Published child immunisation figures were below the minimum World Health Organisation target of 90%.
  • Published Cervical Screening figures were below the local and national averages
  • Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
  • The practice organised and delivered services to meet patients’ needs.
  • Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.
  • The practice provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm.
  • The way the practice was led and managed and promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centre care.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

  • Review the system for the identification of carers to enable this group of patients to access the care and support they need.
  • Consider ways to improve child immunisation and cervical screening figures.

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

26 November 2015

During an inspection looking at part of the service

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection of the practice on 14 April 2015, when we found breaches of legal requirements.

After the comprehensive inspection, the practice wrote to us to say what they would do to meet the legal requirements in relation to the breaches of regulations 12 (2) (g) and 12 (2) (h) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014.

We undertook this focussed inspection on 26 November 2015 to check that they had followed their plan and to confirm that they now met the legal requirements. This report covers our findings in relation to those requirements.

We found that the practice had taken appropriate action to meet the requirements of the regulations.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for the Northern Medical Centre on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

14 April 2015

During a routine inspection

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at The Northern Medical Centre on 14 April 2015. Overall the practice is rated as good.

Specifically, we found the practice to be good for providing well-led, effective, caring and responsive services. It was also good for providing services for older people, families, children and young people, working age people (including those recently retired and students), people living in vulnerable circumstances, people experiencing poor mental health (including people with dementia) and for people with long term conditions. It was rated as requires improvement for providing safe services.

Our key findings across all the areas we inspected were as follows:

  • Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns, and to report incidents and near misses. Information about safety was recorded, monitored, appropriately reviewed and addressed.
  • Risks to patients were assessed and well managed.
  • Patients’ needs were assessed and care was planned and delivered following best practice guidance. Staff had received training appropriate to their roles and any further training needs had been identified and planned. For example, although non clinical staff had not received children and vulnerable adults safeguarding training, we noted that this was scheduled to take place by August 2015.
  • 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.
  • Patients said they found it easy to make an appointment with a named GP and that 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.
  • There was a clear leadership structure and staff felt supported by management. The practice proactively sought feedback from staff and patients, which it acted on.

However there were areas of practice where the provider needs to make improvements.

Importantly the provider must:

  • Introduce a documented system for checking expiry dates of emergency medicines.
  • Ensure that clinical waste awaiting collection is stored away from patient areas and introduce a clinical waste storage policy.
  • Ensure that cleaning schedules are introduced for ear syringe, nebuliser and spirometer equipment.

In addition the provider should

  • Ensure that non clinical staff undertake children and vulnerable adults safeguarding training
  • Review its significant events procedures to ensure learning is shared with non clinical staff.
  • Ensure routine minuting of weekly partner and clinical meetings; to enable reflection on outcomes being achieved and to identity improvement areas.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP 

Chief Inspector of General Practice