Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection of the practice on 19 November 2014. Breaches of legal requirements were found. After the comprehensive inspection, the practice did not submit their action plan. However we were sent the action plan in June 2016 ahead of the focussed inspection. The practice wrote to us to say what they would do to meet the legal requirements in relation to the breaches of regulation 10 (1)(2)(b)(i) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2010, which corresponds to regulation 17 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014.

We undertook this desk-based focussed inspection on 16 June 2016 to check that they had followed their plan and to confirm that they now met the legal requirements. This report covers our findings in relation to those requirements and also where additional improvements have been made following the initial inspection. You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for the Hurley Clinic on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Overall the practice was rated as Good. Specifically, following the focussed inspection we found the practice to be good for providing responsive services.

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

• The practice had implemented some changes to the appointment system to improve access to appointments for patients.
• Data from the national GP patient survey indicated on-going difficulties with getting through to the practice by telephone and difficulty booking appointments.
• The practice had improved the communication system in the waiting area for patients.
• The practice had gathered feedback from patients via their annual survey and complaints which indicated that there was some improvement in satisfaction with appointments.
• The practice had systems in place to improve the quality of the services provided by gathering the views of service users. There had been evidence of engagement with the Patient Participation Group (PPG) and a patient satisfaction survey had been undertaken.

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 Hurley Clinic on 19 November 2014. We visited the practice site at Ebenezer House, Kennington Lane, SE11 4HJ.

Overall the practice is rated as good. Specifically, we found the practice to be good at providing safe, effective, caring and well-led services. We found the practice to require improvement for providing a responsive service. We found the practice to be good for providing services to the population groups of older people, people with long term conditions, working age people (including those recently retired and students), people whose circumstances may make them vulnerable, families, children and young people, and people experiencing poor mental health (including people with dementia).

Our key findings were as follows

• Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns and report incidents and near misses. All opportunities for learning from internal and external incidents were maximised.
• The practice used proactive methods to improve patient outcomes, working in multidisciplinary teams to share best practice.
• The practice had strong governance arrangements in place.

We saw one particular area of outstanding practice. The practice were engaged with their PPG and provided them opportunities to input into decisions about the running of the practice. For example, members of the PPG had been an active part of the recruitment process of new GPs into the practice, and had been satisfied with the decisions made about the new GPs recruited.

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

Importantly, the provider must:

• ensure it takes action to address the difficulties patients have with the appointments system

In addition the provider should:

• ensure mandatory staff training is up to date, particularly fire safety training.
• ensure a suitable and clear means of communication with patients to go in for their appointments is in place in the practice waiting area.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice