All inspections: Eye Health Centre - Care Quality Commission

We carried out an announced comprehensive at Eye Health Centre on 28 April 2023. Overall, the practice is rated as good.

Safe - good

Effective - good

Caring - good

Responsive - good

Well-led - good

Following our previous inspection on 28 July 2016, the practice was rated good overall and for all key questions but.

The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Eye Health Centre on our website at www.cqc.org.uk

Why we carried out this inspection

We carried out this inspection to follow up on concerns reported to us about gaps in staffing with specialist skills.

How we carried out the inspection

This inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to spend a minimum amount of time on site.

This included:

Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing.
Completing clinical searches on the practice’s patient records system (this was with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements).
Reviewing patient records to identify issues and clarify actions taken by the provider.
Requesting evidence from the provider.
A short site visit.

Our findings

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

We found that:

The practice provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm.
There was an effective system in place for reporting and recording significant events.
Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs.
Risks to patients were assessed and well managed.
Patients’ care and treatment was delivered in line with current evidence based guidance.
Staff had been trained to provide them with the skills, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care and treatment.
Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
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.

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

Embed the new procedure to monitor that historical medicine and safety alerts are all actioned in an appropriate timeframe.
Embed and monitor the revised process for monitoring patients care and treatment in an appropriate time frame.
Improve the procedure the practice use to identify carer’s.

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

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

Chief Inspector of Hospitals and Interim Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Eye Health Centre on 28 July 2016. Overall the practice is rated as good.

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

There was an open and transparent approach to safety and an effective system in place for reporting and recording significant events.
Risks to patients were assessed and well managed.

Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance. Staff had been trained to provide them with the skills, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care and treatment.
Patients said they were treated with kindness, 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. Improvements were made to the quality of care as a result of complaints and concerns.
The practice ran personal patient lists. Patients said they found it relatively easy to make an appointment with a named GP and there was continuity of care, 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.
The provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the duty of candour.

The areas where the provider should make improvement are:

The practice had previously conducted audits of the quality of their dispensing service; however, we noted it should undertake further audits to ensure high patient satisfaction. In addition the practice should make more robust arrangements for the security of the dispensary to ensure medicines are kept secure and accessible only to authorised staff. The practice had processes to check and record that medicines throughout the practice were within their expiry date and suitable for use, however, the dispensary should ensure there are systems in place to record expiry checks.

Eye Health Centre