Dr Harbidge & Partners

Background to this inspection

Updated 29 June 2017

Dr Harbidge & Partners is registered with the CQC as a partnership provider and is located in Kidsgrove, Staffordshire. The practice holds a General Medical Services (GMS)contract with NHS England. A GMS contract is a contract between NHS England and general practices for delivering general medical services and is the commonest form of GP contract. The practice is part of the NHS North Staffordshire Clinical Commissioning Group.

The practice is a purpose built single storey building, and is owned and shared with another GP provider. The total patient population on the day of the inspection was 9,586. The practice is in an area considered as one of the least deprived nationally. The practice has a higher proportion of patients aged 65 years (22%) compared to the national average of 17%.

The practice team comprises of:

Four GP partners (one female and three male).
A practice matron, a clinical nurse practitioner, three practice nurses, a clinical nursing assistant and a health care assistant
A practice manager
A team of reception and administration staff.

Practice opening times are Monday and Tuesday from 7am to 6pm, Wednesday 7am to 7.30pm, Thursday 8am to 1pm and Friday 8am to 6pm. GP appointments are from 7am to 12pm on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and 8.30am to 12pm on Thursday and Friday and 2.30pm to 6pm daily except for Thursday afternoon when the practice is closed. Extended opening hours are provided until 7.30pm on Wednesday. The practice has opted out of providing cover to patients in the out-of-hours period. During this time services are provided by Staffordshire Doctors Urgent Care, patients access this service by calling NHS 111.

Overall inspection

Good

Updated 29 June 2017

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We previously carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Dr Harbidge & Partners on 6 October 2016. The overall rating for the practice was requires improvement. The full comprehensive report on the 6 October 2016 inspection can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Dr Harbidge & Partners on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

This inspection was an announced focused inspection carried out on 7 June 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 6 October 2016. This report covers our findings in relation to those requirements and also additional improvements made since our last inspection.

Overall the practice is now rated as Good.

Our key findings were as follows:

Learning from significant events was shared with staff and six monthly significant event analysis meetings were being planned to identify common trends.
There was an effective system in place to follow up children who did not attend hospital appointments.
A system was in place to ensure that all medicine and equipment alerts issued by external agencies were acted upon.
There was a system in place to ensure that patients who were prescribed high risk medicines received appropriate monitoring to minimise potential risks.
Patients’ paper records were stored securely.
Most staff had completed mandatory training identified by the practice.
Governance arrangements were in place to assess and monitor risks and the quality of the service provided.
Written and verbal complaints were recorded to enable trends to be identified.
There were systems in place to enable the practice to receive and act on patient feedback on the quality of the service. For example, a patient participation group (PPG) had been established.
The practice had become a dementia friendly practice.

However, there were also areas of practice where the provider needs to make improvements.

The provider should:

Ensure all GPs are up to date with mandatory training.
Ensure that a GP who is a partner at the practice registers with the Care Quality Commission.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP)

Chief Inspector of General Practice