Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection of Fell Tower Medical Centre on 15 January 2015, which resulted in the practice being rated as good overall but as requiring improvement for the well led domain and the people experiencing poor mental health population group. This was because:

• The practice needed to improve their governance arrangements to ensure a strong link between analysis of their performance and continuous quality improvement, including use of audits, significant events and incidents analysis.
• The performance on the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) indicators was lower than other practices.

In November 2016 we commenced a focussed inspection where we asked the practice to send us information to demonstrate how they had responded to the issues previously identified.

This report only covers our findings in relation to these issues. You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection by selecting the ‘all report’ link for Fell Tower Medical Centre on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Our key findings were as follows:

• The practice had developed a formal business plan. This reflected the vision and values, included a summary of goals and objectives and was regularly monitored.
• A programme of staff meetings was in place. The practice had completed or was in the progress of completing a number of audits since the last inspection.
• Staff had received training on reporting significant events; and the number reported by nursing and administration staff subsequently increased.

The area where the provider should make improvements is:

• Take steps to ensure the care plans for patients with dementia are reviewed.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection of Fell Tower Medical Centre on 15 January 2015.

Overall, the practice was rated as good. It was also good at providing services for older people; People with long-term conditions; families, children and young people; working age people (including those recently retired and students); and people whose circumstances may make them vulnerable. The service for people experiencing poor mental health required improvement.

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

• Staff understood their responsibilities to raise concerns, and to report incidents and near misses. However, when things went wrong, reviews and investigations were not sufficiently thorough and lessons learnt were not communicated widely enough to support improvement.
• People’s needs were assessed and care was planned and delivered following best practice guidance. Staff had received training appropriate to their roles and any further training needs had been identified and training planned.
• 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.
• Patients said they found it easy to make an appointment with a named GP and that there was continuity of care, with urgent appointments available the same day.
• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
• Data from the GP National Patient Survey demonstrated the practice performed similar to local and national averages in a number of areas.
• The practice had a vision and a strategy but not all staff were aware of this and their responsibilities in relation to it. The practice had identified a number of areas for improvement during their planning for the CQC inspection.

However, there were areas of practice where the provider needs to make improvements.

Importantly the provider should:-

• continue to improve their governance arrangements to ensure a strong link between analysis of their performance and continuous quality improvement, including use of audits, significant events and incidents analysis. Where areas for improvement are identified, the practice should develop robust plans to achieve the necessary improvements.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice