Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at the Greengate Medical Centre on 14 March 2016. The overall rating for the practice was requires improvement. The full comprehensive report on the March 2016 inspection can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for the Greengate Medical Centre on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

This inspection was undertaken and was an announced comprehensive inspection on 3 October 2017. Overall the practice is now rated as good.

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

• There was an open and transparent approach to safety and an effective system in place for reporting and recording significant events.
• Risks to patients were assessed and well managed.

• Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance. Staff had been trained to provide them with the skills, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care and treatment.
• 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. Improvements were made to the quality of care as a result of complaints and concerns.
• The practice was equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
• There was a clear leadership structure and staff felt supported by management. The practice proactively sought feedback from staff and patients, which it acted on.
• The provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the duty of candour.

We saw one area of outstanding practice:

The practice had undertaken initiatives and staff training to engage compassionately and effectively with patients from specific groups including those with English as a second language, from the Roma community, homeless patients, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) patients. Patient’s uptake of important preventative breast and bowel cancer screening had improved significantly following practice staff engagement work for patients with English as a second language and were comparatively higher than average as a result.

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

The provider should:

• Review fire escape arrangements for people with a mobility impairment.
• Continue to monitor and take action to improve patient feedback including GP Patient survey results and regarding telephone access and appointments.
• Monitor and ensure good uptake rates for health checks for people with a learning disability.

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 at the Greengate Medical Centre on 14 March 2016. The overall rating for the practice was requires improvement. The full comprehensive report on the March 2016 inspection can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for the Greengate Medical Centre on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

This inspection was undertaken and was an announced comprehensive inspection on 3 October 2017. Overall the practice is now rated as good.

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

• There was an open and transparent approach to safety and an effective system in place for reporting and recording significant events.
• Risks to patients were assessed and well managed.

• Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance. Staff had been trained to provide them with the skills, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care and treatment.
• 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. Improvements were made to the quality of care as a result of complaints and concerns.
• The practice was equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
• There was a clear leadership structure and staff felt supported by management. The practice proactively sought feedback from staff and patients, which it acted on.
• The provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the duty of candour.

We saw one area of outstanding practice:

The practice had undertaken initiatives and staff training to engage compassionately and effectively with patients from specific groups including those with English as a second language, from the Roma community, homeless patients, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) patients. Patient’s uptake of important preventative breast and bowel cancer screening had improved significantly following practice staff engagement work for patients with English as a second language and were comparatively higher than average as a result.

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

The provider should:

• Review fire escape arrangements for people with a mobility impairment.
• Continue to monitor and take action to improve patient feedback including GP Patient survey results and regarding telephone access and appointments.
• Monitor and ensure good uptake rates for health checks for people with a learning disability.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

The provider had not ensured that suitable arrangements were in place to ensure that people received care and support that took account of their disability and ensured they were shown dignity and respect by all staff at all times. One person said “receptionists are rude and unhelpful”.

The provider had relevant paperwork in place to record people’s consent. However, people’s consent was not consistently obtained and their capacity assessed in relation to the care and support they received.

People’s needs were assessed and delivered in line with their treatment plan and other professionals were involved in people’s care. People were protected from the risk of abuse because the provider had taken reasonable steps to identify the possibility of abuse and prevent abuse from happening. The premises were safe and suitable for carrying out the service provided.

The provider did not have in place sufficiently strong arrangements to assess and monitor the quality of service. Some audits were carried out but it was unclear how these had helped the service to effectively manage risk and to learn from what people fed-back to them, making changes and improvements to the service as a result. Complaints were not well managed.

The service provided minor surgery to both NHS and private patients.