Background to this inspection
Updated
11 October 2018
Medical Centre is based in Edgware, London Borough of Barnet. Twenty one percent of patients are aged under 18 (compared to the national practice average of 21%) and 9% are 65 or older (compared to the national practice average of 17%). Forty six percent of patients have a long-standing health condition. The services provided by the practice include child health care, ante and post natal care, immunisations, sexual health and contraception advice and management of long term conditions.
The practice holds a General Medical Services contract with NHS England. The staff team comprises one male lead GP, two female long term locum GPs, a female practice nurse, a practice manager and a team of administrative staff.
The practice’s opening hours are:
- Monday – Friday: 8:00am – 6:30pm (except Thursday:8:00am-1pm)
Appointments are available:
- Monday - Friday: 8:30am – 12pm and 3pm – 6pm (except Thursday: 8:30am-12pm)
A walk in service is available on weekday mornings. Patients are also able to access a local HUB network providing evening and weekend appointments. Outside of these times, cover is provided by an out of hours provider.
The practice is registered to provide the following regulated activities which we inspected:
Diagnostic and screening procedures; Maternity and midwifery services; and Treatment of disease, disorder or injury.
This location has not been inspected before having been formed when one of the GP partners left the previously registered partnership at this location.
Updated
11 October 2018
This practice is rated as Good overall.
The key questions at this inspection are rated as:
Are services safe? – Good
Are services effective? – Good
Are services caring? – Good
Are services responsive? – Good
Are services well-led? - Good
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at “Medical Centre” on 9 August 2018 as part of our inspection programme.
This location was formed when one of the GP partners left the previously registered partnership at this location.
At this inspection we found:
- The practice had clear systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. When incidents did happen, the practice learned from them and improved their processes.
- There were systems in place for sharing learning from incidents with all relevant staff; and for ensuring this learning improved safety.
- The practice routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided. It ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence- based guidelines.
- Staff involved and treated patients with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
- Patients fed back that they could access appointments in a way and at a time that suited them.
- Leadership, practice management and governance arrangements were used to drive and improve the delivery of high quality person-centred care.
The areas where the provider should make improvements are:
- Take action to ensure that appropriate Infection Prevention and Control protocols are in place regarding six monthly replacement of disposable curtains, eye protection for ear irrigation procedures and frequency of checks of cleaned surfaces.
We saw one area of outstanding practice:
The practice provided a weekday walk in appointment service for routine and emergency appointments, in addition to scheduled and telephone appointments being available throughout the day and bookable up to eight weeks in advance. Patients were also able to access a local HUB network providing weekday evening and all day weekend appointments.
Patients spoke positively about appointments access - in particular the walk in facility - and we noted that the practice’s GP national patient survey satisfaction scores were significantly above local and national averages on questions relating to opening hours, ease of making an appointment and phone access. For example, 97% of respondents reported that it was easy to get through to the practice by phone and 82% responded positively when asked about their overall experience of making an appointment.
The lead GP spoke positively about how patients’ timely access to care and treatment also contributed to the practice’s low unplanned hospital admissions rate which we noted was the third lowest of the 60 practices in the local Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) area. CCG data also highlighted that the cost to the NHS of the practice’s patients attending hospital emergency departments was the lowest of its cohort of five local practices.
Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGPChief Inspector of General Practice
Please refer to the detailed report and the evidence tables for further information.