East Park Medical Centre

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at East Park Medical Centre on 25 and 27 July 2022. Following this inspection, we rated the location as good overall and the following for each key question:

Safe - Good

Effective - Good

Caring - Good

Responsive - Good

Well-led - Good

Why we carried out this inspection

This announced comprehensive inspection was carried out following changes to the provider registration and legal entity of the practice. This was the first inspection since this change.

Under their previous registration, the practice was inspected on 8 December 2017. At that inspection, the practice was rated good overall and for all key questions of safe, caring, responsive and well-led. Effective was rated as requires improvement. We returned on 7 November 2018, and at that inspection effective was rated good. The full report for those inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for East Park Medical Centre on our website at www.cqc.org.uk

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:

• Requesting evidence from the provider.
• Conducting some staff interviews via telephone.
• Practice staff completing questionnaires.
• 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.
• A visit to the main site at 5-7 East Park Road.

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

We found that:

• There were systems in place to safeguard children and vulnerable adults from abuse and staff knew how to identify and report safeguarding concerns.
• Leaders reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care the service provided. They ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence-based guidelines.
• The practice had adjusted how it delivered services to meet the needs of patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Staff had the skills, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care.
• The practice operated effective systems and processes to ensure good governance in accordance with the fundamental standards of care.
• There was a “sit and wait” clinic available one day a week, which allowed flexibility for patients, particularly those with complex needs.

Whilst we found no breaches of regulations, the provider should:

• Summarise any outstanding patient records to ensure that information is available for the delivery of safe patient care and treatment.
• Improve the process for the management of patient safety alerts to ensure all potentially affected patients are informed.
• Continue to look at ways of improving uptake rates for childhood immunisations and cervical cancer screening.

We found an area of outstanding practice:

• The practice employed a children and young people’s champion who worked closely with schools and other key stakeholder, to improve outcomes for that population group.

Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

Chief Inspector of Hospitals and Interim Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services