Archived: Bridge Practice

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Bridge Practice on 17 November 2015. The overall rating was good. During the inspection we found breaches of legal requirements and the provider was rated as requires improvement under the effective key question. Following this inspection the practice sent to us an action plan detailing what they would do to meet the legal requirements in relation to the following:-

• Ensuring that training for staff is completed as appropriate and training records kept up to date.

The full comprehensive report on the 17 November 2015 inspection outcome can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Bridge Practice on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

An announced focused inspection was carried out on 28 February 2017. This inspection was to verify if the practice had carried out their action plan to meet the legal requirements in relation to the breaches in regulations that we had identified in our previous inspection on 17 November 2015. This report covers our findings in relation to those requirements and also additional improvements made since our last inspection.

At our previous inspection on 17 November 2015, we rated the practice as requires improvement for providing effective services as not all GP partners and staff had completed training appropriate to their job role. At this inspection we found that the practice had not completed their action plan and not all GP partners and staff had completed training appropriate to their job role. Consequently, the practice is still rated as requires improvement for providing effective services.

Our key findings at this inspection, 28 February 2017 were as follows:

• All non-clinical staff had completed training at a level appropriate to their job role. However not all clinical staff had completed training appropriate to their job role in accordance with the practice training schedule.
• The practice had implemented a central record of staff training. However this was not being used effectively to ensure that all training was up to date.
• At our previous inspection on 17 November 2015, we also found that not all staff were receiving annual appraisals.
• During our inspection 28 February 2017 we saw;
• The practice had implemented a schedule of appraisals and all staff had received an appraisal within the last year.

However, there were also areas of practice where the provider still needed to make improvements.

Importantly, the provider must:

• Ensure that all GP partners, clinical and non-clinical staff complete training appropriate to their job role and in accordance with practice training schedule and ensure that training is monitored by the practice.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice