Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Alcester Health Centre on 28 January 2016. The overall rating for this service is good.

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

• Patients’ needs were assessed and care was provided to meet those needs in line with current guidance. Staff had the skills and expertise to deliver effective care and treatment to patients, and this was maintained through a programme of continuous development to ensure their skills remained current and up-to-date.
• Information was provided to help patients understand the care available to them. Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.
• Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns and report incidents and near misses. There was an open and transparent approach to reporting and recording these and learning was shared with staff at meetings relevant to their roles and responsibilities.
• The practice had good facilities, had been purpose built and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
• The practice had responded to feedback from staff and patients, which led to changes to telephone access for appointments. The practice had used multimedia sites to share information and gather feedback.
• The practice worked closely with other organisations and with the local community in planning how services were provided to ensure that they met patients’ needs.
• The practice had a clear vision which had quality and safety as its top priority. Planning was in place to demonstrate the intended development of the services provided by the practice.

We saw an area of outstanding practice:

• A care coordinator had been appointed by the practice to provide a preventative service for those patients who had not visited the practice, patients discharged from hospital or patients who were housebound. A reduction in the number of patients who had been admitted to hospital in an emergency had been achieved.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Alcester health on 20 November 2018 as part of our inspection programme. At the previous inspection on 28 January 2016 the practice was rated as good overall.

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.
• There were clearly defined systems, processes and practices in place to keep people safe and safeguarded from abuse and for identifying and mitigating risks of health and safety.
• For patients with the most complex needs GPs worked with other health and care professionals to deliver a coordinated package of care.
• Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs, although improvement was needed to the process for monitoring patients’ health in relation to the use of high risk medicines.
• Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
• Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.
• Patients with long-term conditions had a structured annual review to check their health and medicines needs were being met. However, not all patients had been included within the scope for prediabetes checks.
• The practice provided support for vulnerable patients which included patients who had been excluded from traditional general practice and service veterans.
• There were comprehensive policies and procedures to support best practice.
• There were clear responsibilities, roles and systems of accountability to support effective governance.

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

• Review the system to ensure that all secondary care monitoring of patients taking high risk medicines is recorded on patient records.
• Develop formal record to show corroboration of the various safeguarding registers.
• Reviews of actions taken in relation to significant events and complaints should be conducted to ensure that all learning and changes made have been fully embedded.
• The scope of the pre-diabetes register should be widened so that all patients are included as recommended in best practice guidance.
• Two cycle audits should be completed to further improve quality monitoring.

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

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP
Chief Inspector of General Practice