Background to this inspection
Updated
6 February 2020
- The name of the registered provider is Dr Walter Tobias.
- The practice is registered to provide diagnostic and screening procedures, family planning, maternity and midwifery services, surgical procedures and treatment of disease, disorder or injury.
- The practice has a Personal Medical Services (PMS) contract with NHS Ipswich and East Suffolk Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG).
- There are approximately 6,160 patients registered at the practice.
- The practice area covers the village of Martlesham Heath and the surrounding villages. The practice is situated within 600 meters of a large telecommunications Research Laboratory and the practice provides medical services to large numbers of short-term temporary residents and their families.
- The practice has a dispensary and offers dispensing services to those patients on the practice list who live more than one mile (1.6km) from their nearest pharmacy.
- The practice is managed by one GP. There is one salaried GP (male) and two long term locums (one male and one female). There is one practice nurse (female) and two new practice nurses are due to start imminently and two healthcare practitioners (all female). The practice had appointed an advanced nurse practitioner, due to commence in post in April 2020. The practice manager is supported by a lead receptionist, with eight reception staff and three administration staff. The lead receptionist is the lead dispenser. Two of the receptionists are dispensers and another receptionist also works as an administrator.
- The practice and dispensary are open Monday to Friday from 8am to 6.30pm.
- Patients could book evening and weekend appointments with a GP through Suffolk GP+ (Suffolk GP+ is for patients who urgently need a doctor’s appointment or are not able to attend their usual GP practice on a weekday.)
- An out of hours service is provided locally by Suffolk GP Federation C.I.C. through the NHS 111 service.
- According to information taken from Public Health England, the patient population for this service has a higher than average number of patients aged 65 to 74 years, compared to the practice average across England. Income deprivation affecting children and older people was significantly below the England average. Male life expectancy is 83 years for men, which is above the England average of 79 years. Female life expectancy is 85 years for women, which is above the England average of 83 years.
Updated
6 February 2020
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection on 13 January 2020. This was to follow up on breaches of regulations and enforcement identified at our previous inspection on 10 July 2019, and to re-rate the practice.
At the previous inspection in July 2019, we rated the practice as requires improvement overall. This was because we rated the provider as inadequate for providing safe services, requires improvement for providing well led services and good for providing effective, caring and responsive services. The practice was issued with a warning notice for Regulation 17, good governance and a requirement notices for Regulation 18, staffing and Regulation 19, fit and proper persons employed. At this inspection, in January 2020, we found that the provider had complied with the warning notice and requirement notices.
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 have rated this practice as good overall and good for all population groups.
We found that:
- Improvements had been made to the systems and oversight of training, medicines monitoring, referrals and actions from safety alerts. There was effective oversight of the dispensary with standard operating procedures up to date and signed, competency assessments for dispensing staff completed and documented checks of the expiry dates of medicines. The practice had improved the process to ensure appropriate and timely recruitment checks, health and safety checks were completed.
- Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs.
- Staff supported patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care and treatment.
- The practice organised and delivered services to meet patients’ needs. Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.
- The practice worked well with the ‘practice and patient group’ and acted on several suggestions, which had improved the service.
- The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centre care. Staff were aware of their responsibilities.
We found one area of outstanding practice:
- Where vulnerable and frail patients were identified, the practice provided them with a direct mobile telephone number to the practice. Staff received training to ensure this telephone line was responded to within two rings to ensure patients received an appropriate and rapid response to their requests for assistance. This ensured that such patients did not feel isolated.
The areas where the provider should make improvements are:
- Continue with the planned audits of the newly implemented cleaning checks and schedules, to ensure the new system is embedded, effective and sustained.
- Continue work to review prescribing to ensure it is appropriate, especially in relation to areas of higher prescribing rates in line with national guidelines for relevant medicines.
- Continue to improve the uptake of cervical cancer screening for eligible women.
- Take action to ensure that practice’s whistleblowing policy references access to a Freedom to Speak Up Guardian.
Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.
Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP
Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care
Working age people (including those recently retired and students)
Updated
8 August 2019
People experiencing poor mental health (including people with dementia)
Updated
8 August 2019