Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice
We carried out our first announced comprehensive inspection at Castleton Health Centre on 3 February 2015. The overall rating for the practice was Good. The full comprehensive report following the inspection on 3 February 2015 can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Castleton Health Centre on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
At that time our key findings were as follows:
Within the key question safe, recruitment and safeguarding were identified as requiring improvement, as the practice was not meeting the legislation at that time. The areas where the practice was told they must make improvement were as follows :
- Regulation 12 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2010 which corresponds to Regulation 10 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulation 2014. The registered person did not assess the risks to people’s health and safety and could not evidence that all staff had the qualifications, competence, skills and experience to keep people safe.
- Regulation 13 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2010, which corresponds to regulation 11 (1)(a) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. No policies were in place for the safeguarding of children or vulnerable adults. There was no record of safeguarding training for any staff although clinical staff stated they had been trained in safeguarding children. Non-clinical staff had not been told how to escalate safeguarding concerns.
- Regulation 19 (1)(a)(b)(2)(3) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2010, which corresponds to regulation 21(a)(i)(ii)(b) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. The registered person did not operate robust recruitment procedures to ensure they only employed fit and proper staff.
This most recent inspection was an announced focused inspection carried out on 11 January 2017 to confirm that the practice had carried out their plan to meet the legal requirements in relation to the breaches in regulations that we identified in our previous inspection on 3 February 2015. This report covers our findings in relation to those requirements and also additional improvements made since our last inspection.
The overall rating for the practice remains as good.
Our key findings were as follows:
- There was a health and safety representative and we saw evidence of risk assessments of the practice undertaken every three months. All staff had received health and safety training including fire safety. All gas and electrical equipment had been checked to ensure it was safe.
- The practice had introduced up to date policies for the safeguarding of children and vulnerable adults. All staff had received level 3 safeguarding training and they understood how to escalate safeguarding concerns to the safeguarding lead and directly to the safeguarding community team if appropriate.
- The provider’s recruitment policy included a requirement for the check of professional registration and qualifications, and consideration of a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check. We saw that checks that staff were of good character had been obtained and other evidence, such as a check of a staff member’s identity, and DBS checks for all staff were kept on the personnel files.
Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP)
Chief Inspector of General Practice