Snodland Medical Practice

Updated 25 October 2022

Snodland Medical Practice is located at Catts Alley, Snodland, Kent, ME6 5SN

The provider is registered with CQC to deliver the Regulated Activities; diagnostic and screening procedures; maternity and midwifery services; treatment of disease, disorder or injury; family planning; and surgical procedures.

The practice is situated within the Kent and Medway Integrated Care System (ICS) and delivers General Medical Services (GMS) to a patient population of about 12,041. This is part of a contract held with NHS England.

The practice is part of a wider network of GP practices: Malling Primary Care Network (PCN)

Information published by Public Health England shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the sixth lowest decile (six of 10). The lower the decile, the more deprived the practice population is relative to others.

According to the latest available data, the ethnic make-up of the practice area is 97.5% White, 1.1% Mixed, 1% Asian, 0.3% Black, and 0.2% Other.

The practice consists of seven GP partners. The practice has a team of one advanced nurse practitioner and three nurses who provide nurse led clinics for long-term conditions. The GPs are supported at the practice by a team of reception and administration staff. The practice manager provides managerial oversight.

Extended access is provided locally by the PCN, where late evening and weekend appointments are available. Out of hours services are provided by NHS 111. NHS 111 deals with urgent problems when GP surgeries are closed.

Updated 25 October 2022

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Snodland Medical Practice on 29 September 2022. Overall, the practice is rated as Good.

The key questions are rated as:

Safe - Good

Effective - Good

Caring - Good

Responsive - Good

Well-led - Good

Following our previous inspection on 6 December 2016 the practice was rated good overall but requires improvement for providing safe services. We carried out an announced focused inspection on 23 May 2017 to confirm that the practice had carried out their plan to meet the breaches in regulations identified at the inspection on 6 December 2016. We found that the practice had made significant improvements and was rated as good for providing safe services.

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

Why we carried out this inspection

This inspection was a comprehensive inspection to check whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provider a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

We undertook this inspection as part of a random selection of services rated Good and Outstanding to test the reliability of our new monitoring approach.

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:

• 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 found that:

• The practice provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm.
• The practice learned and made improvements when things went wrong.
• The practice had identified patients who may need extra support and worked to improve access to services for these patients.
• The practice had a comprehensive programme of quality improvement activity.
• 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.
• There was compassionate, inclusive and effective leadership at all levels.

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

• Ensure that an action plan, including completion dates, is included as part of all risk assessments.
• Continue to implement and monitor the outcome of plans to improve performance relating to antibiotic prescribing.
• Improve monitoring of refrigerator temperatures, ensuring accurate recording of actions taken where temperatures are outside of acceptable limits.
• Continue to improve cervical cancer screening uptake.

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