Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection of Twickenham Park Surgery on 20 September 2016. The practice was rated as good overall. A breach of legal requirements was found relating to the Safe domain. After the comprehensive inspection, the practice submitted an action plan, outlining what they would do to meet the legal requirements in relation to the breach of regulation 12 (Safe care and treatment) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014.
During the comprehensive inspection we found that the practice had failed to ensure that the necessary documentation was in place for the administering of medicines. We also identified areas where improvements should be made, which included advertising the availability of chaperones and language translation, ensuring that staff have received appropriate training in line with the practice’s chaperone policy, ensuring that their recruitment policy is up to date, reviewing the arrangements for storing emergency medicines, reviewing their arrangements for distributing medicines updates to staff, ensuring that complete records are kept relating to complaints, and reviewing the way that significant events are investigated and the learning form them is shared and embedded.
We undertook this focussed desk-based inspection on 9 March 2017 to check that the practice had followed their plan and to confirm that they now met the legal requirements. This report covers our findings in relation to those requirements. You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Twickenham Park Surgery on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
Following the focussed inspection, we found the practice to be good for providing safe services. Following the follow-up inspection, they are rated as good overall.
Our key findings were as follows:
- The practice had the correct documentation in place to allow staff to administer medicines, and we saw evidence that the practice had ensured that all staff were aware of the process and their responsibilities in relation to this.
- The practice advertised the availability of language translation services in the waiting area.
- The practice ensured that all staff who acted as chaperones were trained for the role, and they advertised this service to patients in the waiting area.
- The practice’s recruitment policy had been updated to accurately reflect the practice’s approach to carrying-out Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks on staff.
- The practice held stocks of emergency medicines and these were stored in an area of the practice which was secure but easily accessible to staff in an emergency.
- The practice had an effective system in place for distributing medicines updates to relevant staff and kept a record of the action that they had taken in response to these alerts.
- We saw evidence that the practice kept detailed records of significant events, and that action was taken to share and embed learning resulting from incidents.
- The practice kept complete records relating to complaints received, including records of action taken to share learning resulting from complaints with staff. However, we noted that the practice did not always include contact details for the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman in their complaint responses.
One area where the provider should make improvement is:
- They should ensure that they provide contact details for the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman in their complaint responses so that patients can continue to pursue their complaint if they are unhappy with the practice’s response.
Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP
Chief Inspector of General Practice