We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection on 15 February 2018 to ask the service the following key questions; Are services safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led?

Our findings were:

Are services safe?

We found that this service was not providing safe care in accordance with the relevant regulations.

Are services effective?

We found that this service was providing effective care in accordance with the relevant regulations.

Are services caring?

We found that this service was providing caring services in accordance with the relevant regulations.

Are services responsive?

We found that this service was providing responsive care in accordance with the relevant regulations.

Are services well-led?

We found that this service was providing well-led care in accordance with the relevant regulations.

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the practice was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Dr Elaine Tickle offers primary care appointments with a GP with onward referral to diagnostic and specialist services as appropriate. The practice treats both adults and children.

The principal GP is the registered manager. A registered manager is a person who is registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

Our key findings were:

• Systems were in place to protect people from avoidable harm and abuse.
• When mistakes occurred lessons were learned and action was taken to minimise the potential for reoccurrence. Staff understood their responsibilities under the duty of candour.
• Staff were aware of current evidence based guidance.
• Staff were qualified and had the skills, experience and knowledge to deliver effective care and treatment.
• Patient feedback indicated that patients were very satisfied with the service.
• Information about services and how to complain was available.
• There was clear leadership and staff felt supported. The practice team worked well together.
• There was a clear vision to provide a high quality, personalised service.
• The practice had systems in place to monitor and improve the quality of service provision.

We identified one regulation that was not being met and the provider must:

• Ensure care and treatment is provided in a safe way to patients.

You can see full details of the regulations not being met at the end of this report.

There were areas where the provider could make improvements and should:

• Review the security of any portable laptops used to access clinical record systems remotely to ensure that patient confidentiality is appropriately protected.
• Review its procedures to check the identity of children and accompanying adults attending the practice.
• Review its quality improvement programme and, for example, embed clinical audit more systematically in its monitoring of performance.