We carried out a review of the data available to us about Earls Court Medical Centre on 6 July 2023. We have not found evidence that we need to carry out an inspection or reassess our rating at this stage.
This could change at any time if we receive new information. We will continue to monitor data about this service.
If you have concerns about Earls Court Medical Centre, you can give feedback on this service.
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Earls Court Medical Centre on 14 January 2020. The overall rating for the practice was good, with the exception of key question Effective which was rated requires improvement. The full report on the 14 January 2020 inspection can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Earls Court Medical Centre on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
Set out the ratings for each key question
Safe - Good
Effective - Good
Caring - Good
Responsive - Good
Well-led - Good
This review was an announced focused follow-up review carried out on 27 July 2021 to confirm that the practice continued to make improvements on areas that we had identified at our previous inspection held on 14 January 2020. This report covers our findings in relation to those improvements and also additional improvements made since our last inspection. This review of information was undertaken without carrying out a site visit.
Why we carried out this review
This review was a focused review of information without undertaking a site visit inspection to follow up on:
How we carried out the review
Throughout the pandemic CQC has continued to regulate and respond to risk. However, taking into account the circumstances arising as a result of the pandemic, and in order to reduce risk, we have conducted our reviews differently.
This review was carried out in a way which enabled us to review information sent to us by the practice and to spend no time on site. This was with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements.
This included:
Our findings
We based our judgement of the quality of care at this service on a combination of:
At this inspection we found there had been sufficient improvement to rate the Effective key question Good. The ratings for the practice are therefore now good overall and good for all population groups with the exception of the population group working age people which is rated requires improvement for effective services as breast, bowel cancer screening were lower than local and national averages and cervical screening outcomes were significantly below national targets.
We found that:
Whilst we found no breaches of regulations, the provider should:
Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.
Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP
Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Earls Court Medical Centre on 14 January 2020 as part of our inspection programme.
We based our judgement of the quality of care at this service on a combination of:
We have rated this practice as good overall and requires improvement for effective services which relates to the population groups families, children and young people and working age people as childhood immunisation and cervical screening outcomes were significantly below national targets.
We found that:
Whilst we found no breaches of regulations, the provider should:
Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.
Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP
Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Earls Court Medical Centre on 5 May 2015. The practice had previously been inspected during our pilot phase in May 2014. We must conduct inspections at those practices that were inspected during our pilot phase in order to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.
Specifically, we found the practice to be good for providing safe, effective, caring, 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 living in vulnerable circumstances 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, accidents and significant events.
Staff received adequate support and training to deliver effective care.
Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect. 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 and complaints were dealt with in a timely way.
T here were governance arrangements in place and staff understood their level of responsibility and accountability.
However there were some areas where the provider needs to make improvements.
The provider should:
Carry out minor surgery audits as recommended by the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP).
Provide access to an automated external defibrillator (used to attempt to restart a person’s heart in an emergency) as recommended by the UK resuscitation council guidelines.
Formalise the practice’s vision and strategy.
Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP)
Chief Inspector of General Practice
Earls Court Medical Centre provides primary medical services through a General Medical Services (GMS) contract to people in the local community.
The service is registered with the Care Quality Commission to provide the regulated activities of diagnostic and screening procedures, treatment of disease, disorder and injury, surgical procedures, family planning and maternity and midwifery services.
During our inspection we spoke with eight staff and five patients. We also received feedback through the CQC comment cards.
We found that the service had some systems in place to manage patients’ safety. Staff received appropriate training and professional development to deliver safe and effective care. The service was responsive to patients’ needs and used feedback and complaints to improve. However, there were some areas where improvements needed to be made. We found that opportunities existed to improve outcomes for patients based on the practices' Quality Outcomes and Framework (QOF) performance. The service could not provide evidence of completed audit cycles and therefore it was not clear how patient care had improved as a result. We found that learning from serious incidents had taken place but there was no evidence that learning had been shared with all staff and there were no contingency plans in place to ensure continuity of care for patients in the event of a major disruption to the service.