Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Wallis Avenue on 6 and 11 May 2015. Breaches of the legal requirements were found. Following the comprehensive inspection, the practice wrote to us to tell us what they would do to meet the legal requirements in relation to the breaches.

We undertook this focussed inspection on 2 February 2016, to check that the practice had followed their plan and to confirm that they now met the legal requirements. This report only covers our findings in relation to those requirements. You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection by selecting ‘all reports’ link for Wallis Avenue on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

Wallis Avenue is located in a residential area in Maidstone, Kent. It provides primary medical services to approximately 3500 registered patients.

We carried out an unannounced, focused inspection on 3 November 2014 as we had received concerning information about the practice. We visited the practice location at The Surgery, Wallis Avenue, Maidstone, Kent, ME15 9JJ

Wallis Avenue was not rated as this was the first inspection of the practice. It was a focused inspection which means we did not inspect against all elements of the domains to enable us to give an overall rating.

There were areas of practice where the provider needs to make improvements.

Importantly, the provider must:

• ensure that they have an appropriate process in place for assessing the needs of patients and planning their care to meet individual needs
• review the process of administration staff writing out prescriptions for patients without them being seen or assessed by a GP
• have a process in place for investigating and learning from complaints
• ensure that they have risk assessed the way patient records are stored to ensure that confidential information is not accessible to anyone but relevant practice staff
• risk assess all staff roles that do not have criminal records checks
• ensure that all staff have relevant health checks and all information relevant to safe recruitment is recorded in staff files
• ensure that all staff have regular appraisals and access to appropriate training
• ensure that there is appropriate processes in place to access and monitor risks and services and ensure that individual patient needs are monitored

In addition the provider should:

• improve access to appointments for patients and improve the process for making appointments for being seen on the same day.

Due to the concerns raised during the focussed inspection we will be completing a Comprehensive inspection early in 2015.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP)

Chief Inspector of General Practice

We reviewed the information available to us about Wallis Avenue on 9 May 2019. We did not find evidence of significant changes to the quality of service being provided since the last inspection. As a result, we decided not to inspect the surgery at this time. We will continue to monitor this information about this service throughout the year and may inspect the surgery when we see evidence of potential changes.