Background to this inspection
Updated
13 February 2019
Little Venice Medical Centre is located at 2 Crompton Street, London W2 1ND and is situated on the first and second floor of a purpose-built health centre. The practice is co-located with another GP practice which occupies the ground floor. The practice has access to four consultation rooms on the first floor and two consultation rooms on the second floor which are accessible by a lift and stairs.
The practice provides NHS primary care services to approximately 4,700 patients and operates under a General Medical Services (GMS) contract (GMS is a contract between NHS England and general practices for delivering general medical services and is the commonest form of GP contract). The practice is part of NHS Central Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG).
The practice is registered as a partnership with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to provide the regulated activities of diagnostic and screening procedures, treatment of disease, disorder or injury, maternity and midwifery services, family planning and surgical procedures.
The practice staff comprises of one male and two female GP partners undertaking nine combined sessions per week and a female salaried GP undertaking eight sessions per week. The clinical team is supported by a practice nurse and healthcare assistant, a non-clinical managing partner, a full-time practice manager and 10 administration/reception staff.
The practice is open between 8am and 6.30pm Monday to Friday. The practice offers on-line services, which include appointment booking and repeat prescriptions which can be accessed from the practice website www.littlevenicemedicalcentre.co.uk. The practice does not currently provide any extended hours appointments. However, patients have access to three GP hub practices within Westminster offering appointments from 6.30pm to 8pm Monday to Friday and from 8am to 8pm on Saturday and Sunday. These appointments are bookable through the practice and we saw this was advertised within the waiting room, in the practice leaflet and on the practice website.
Information published by Public Health England rates the level of deprivation within the practice population group as three on a scale of one to ten. Level one represents the highest levels of deprivation and level ten the lowest. Data shows that almost 44% of patients at the practice area were from Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) groups. The highest proportion of the practice population was in the 15 to 44-year-old age category.
Updated
13 February 2019
We undertook a comprehensive inspection of this location on 19 September 2016 when the service was provided by Dr Thomas Barnwell and we found the practice to be inadequate and it was placed in special measures for a period of six months. The inspection report can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Dr Thomas Barnwell on our website at .
The location, now known as Little Venice Medical Centre, was taken over by the Wellington Medical Centre partnership in December 2016. We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at the location on 11 January 2018 when the overall rating for the practice was Good with Requires Improvement for safe service. The full comprehensive report on the 11 January 2018 inspection can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Little Venice Medical Centre on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
This inspection, on 13 December 2018, was an announced comprehensive inspection to confirm that the practice had carried out their plan to meet the requirements that we identified in our previous inspection on 11 January 2018.
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 had been proactive and addressed the findings of our previous inspection in relation to cleanliness and infection prevention and control.
- 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.
- The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centre care.
However, the provider should:
- Continue to address the outstanding premises issue with the landlord in relation to the availability of hot water throughout the premises.
- Carry out a risk assessment and consider emergency medicines taken on home visits.
- Review the scope and consistency of documenting incidents to enable outcomes and learning to be shared within the practice.
- Review the process to document all patient safety alerts received and action taken in response to these.
- Continue with efforts to improve the uptake of child immunisations for children aged two and cervical screening.
- Continue to develop and encourage patients to join the patient participation group.
Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.
Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP
Chief Inspector of General Practice