Royal Arsenal Medical Centre

Ratings

• Overall

  Requires improvement

• Safe

  Inadequate

• Effective

  Good

• Caring

  Good

• Responsive

  Good

• Well-led

  Requires improvement

Our view of the service

We carried out an announced assessment on 03 December 2024. Clinical records searches were completed remotely on 02 December 2024. Royal Arsenal Medical Centre is an NHS GP practice located in South East London in the borough of Greenwich. There were approximately 11,000 people registered with the service at the time of our assessment. Information published by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities shows that deprivation within the practice population group is in the sixth decile (6 out of 10). The lower the decile, the more deprived the practice population is relative to others. We conducted this assessment due to receiving information of concern. We assessed 16 quality statements across safe, effective, and well-led key questions and have combined the scores for these areas with scores from the last inspection completed in 2018. At this assessment, we found that systems and processes in place to ensure patient safety were not always fully effective. Whilst the practice had taken proactive steps to meet the needs of the local patient population, there were gaps in the governance systems in place to ensure recruitment and training were completed in line with national guidance. Policies were not always reviewed regularly and did not always name the designated leads within the practice. We found breaches of Regulation 12 - Safe care and treatment and Regulation 17 - Good governance. In instances where CQC have decided to take civil or criminal enforcement action against a provider, we will publish this information on our website after any representations and/ or appeals have been concluded. We have asked the provider for an action plan in response to the concerns found at this assessment.

People's experience of this service

People had mixed reviews about the quality of their care and treatment. Recent survey results from the National GP Patient Survey showed mixed results on how satisfied they were with services. We reviewed the previous 3 months of NHS Friends and Family Test results for the practice, and found this was largely positive in nature. There was an active patient participation group (PPG) who represented the views of people using the service, and the practice displayed signage in the reception area to encourage further membership. At the time of our assessment, there were gaps in the monitoring of patients treated for certain long-term conditions and for those who were prescribed certain medicines, therefore having a potential negative impact on patient experience.