We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Ross Road Medical Centre on 12 March 2019 as part of our inspection programme.

We based our judgement of the quality of care at this service on a combination of:

• what we found when we inspected
• information from our ongoing monitoring of data about services and
• information from the provider, patients, the public and other organisations.

We have rated this practice as good overall and good for all population groups.

We found that:

• The practice provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm.
• Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs.
• Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
• The practice organised and delivered services to meet patients’ needs. Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.
• The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centre care.
• There was a focus on using audit to improve outcomes. The practice had completed 30 audits in the last year.

Whilst we found no breaches of regulations, the provider should:

• Improve the identification of carers to enable this group of patients to access the care and support they need.
• Monitor the changes made on the day of inspection to ensure they are effective and sustainable.
• Review the process of following up invitations to attend cancer screening to improve uptake of these screening programmes.

Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BS BM BMedSci MRCGP

Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Ross Road Medical Centre on 25 March 2015. Overall the practice is rated as good.

Specifically, we found the practice to be good for all the key questions and for all the population groups.

Our key findings across all the areas we inspected 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 innovative and proactive methods to improve patient outcomes, for example, a birth and vulnerable patients’ registers to track patients at risk.
• Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment. Information was provided to help patients understand the care available to them.

• The practice implemented suggestions for improvements and made changes to the way it delivered services as a consequence of feedback from patients and from the Patient Participation Group (PPG).

• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs. Information about how to complain was available and easy to understand
• The practice had a clear vision which had quality and safety as its top priority. A business plan was in place, was monitored and regularly reviewed and discussed with all staff. High standards were promoted and owned by all practice staff with evidence of team working across all roles.

We saw one area of outstanding practice:

• The GPs reviewed and audited every cancer diagnosis. The practice’s identification and detection rate was higher than the CCG average. Specifically, cancer identification was 2.46 compared to the local average of 1.87 and the detection rate was 72.7% compared to the local average of 46.5%.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice