Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Minster Medical Centre on 26 March 2015. Overall the practice is rated as good.

Specifically, we found the practice to be good for providing safe, effective, caring, and responsive and well led services. It was also good for providing services for older people, people with long-term conditions, families, children and young people, working age people (including those recently retired and students), people whose circumstances may make them vulnerable and people experiencing poor mental health (including people with dementia).

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

• Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns, and to report incidents and near misses. Information about safety was recorded, monitored, appropriately reviewed and addressed.
• Risks to patients were assessed and well managed, with the exception of those relating to recruitment checks.
• Patients’ 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 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 GP or nurse, with urgent appointments available the same day.
• The practice had good facilities and was well 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.

There was one area of practice where the provider needs to make improvements.

Importantly the provider should

• Review its auditing activity to help ensure its effectiveness and to more closely reflect the population it served.

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 focussed inspection on 18 February 2015. During the inspection we spoke with the administrative staff, examined staff files, policies and other documents.

Minster Medical Centre has not received a rating as this was a focussed inspection.

We undertook this inspection because we had received concerning information that indicated that the practice’s processes for recruiting staff and for ensuring that staff met the regulatory standards might have been inadequate. Therefore the inspection focussed solely on the provider’s compliance with Regulation 21 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2010.

Upon inspection we found that the practice’s recruitment procedures did meet the regulatory standards.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice