The Care Quality Commission
  • Doctor
  • GP practice

Blyth's Meadow Surgery

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

Trinovantian Way, Braintree, Essex, CM7 3JN (01376) 552508

Provided and run by:
Blyth's Meadow Surgery

All Inspections

08 December 2015

During an inspection looking at part of the service

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out a comprehensive inspection at Blyth’s Meadow Surgery on 13 February 2015. The practice was rated as good overall and in particular rated as good for effective, caring, responsive, well-led services and requires improvement for safe service.

During the inspection on 13 February 2015 we found that;

  • The practice did not have safe medicine management procedures.

  • They did not have robust controlled drugs stock control.

  • No controlled drugs disposal arrangements.

  • They did not follow the practice policy for the safe disposal of medication.

The practice were issued with a requirement notice for improvement.

There were also areas we told the practice they should address to improve safety.

We found:

  • Risks to patients were not assessed appropriately or recorded.

  • Complaints were not being reviewed to detect recurrent themes or trends.

  • Meeting minutes were not recorded or made available to staff members.

Following the previous inspection the practice sent us information about the actions they would take and when they would be implemented.

We then carried out a focused inspection at Blyth’s Meadow Surgery 08 December 2015 to follow-up on our previous inspection and to ensure that the practice had made the required improvements.

Our key findings during this focused follow-up inspection were as follows:

  • The practice had reviewed medicine management procedures and implemented changes that were effective.
  • Risks to patients were assessed and well managed.
  • Complaints were reviewed to detect themes and trends.
  • Minutes of meetings were recorded and made available to staff.

We were therefore satisfied that the provider had made all of the improvements identified as a result of the inspection on 13 February 2015.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

13/02/2015

During a routine inspection

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Blyth's Meadow Surgery on 13 February 2015. Overall the practice is rated as Good.

Specifically, we found the practice was Good for providing effective, caring, responsive, and well-led services. It also was also Good for providing services for older people, people with long-term conditions, families, children and young people, working age people (including those recently retired and students), people living in vulnerable circumstances, and people experiencing poor mental health (including people with dementia). It Required 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, but were not recorded thus scope for review and analysis for learning was not available for the practice.
  • Data showed patient outcomes were below average for the locality. Although some audits had been carried out, and we saw some evidence that one audit was driving improvement in patient outcomes.
  • 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.
  • Urgent appointments were usually available on the day they were requested.
  • The practice had a number of policies and procedures to govern activity, but these had not been reviewed since 2013. They were in the process of being reviewed and updated at the time of our inspection.
  • The practice did not have an effective system in place to obtain feedback from staff or patients

The areas where the provider must make improvements are:

  • Implement appropriate controlled drug stock control and follow the practice policy regarding owning controlled drug destruction kits for drugs that are out of date and cannot be used to treat patients.

In addition the provider should:

  • Analyse health and safety risks to understand, detect themes, and reduce risks for the future.
  • Review complaints to detect themes and trends.
  • Record minutes of meetings and make these available to staff unable to attend.
  • Continue to try and engage with patients for service feedback, and put mechanisms in place to seek and act on feedback from staff.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice