St Heliers Medical Practice

We carried out an announced inspection of St Heliers Medical Practice on 21 November 2019. We carried out an inspection of this service following our annual review of the information available to us including information provided by the practice. Our review indicated that there may have been a significant change to the quality of care provided since the last inspection.

This inspection focused on the following key questions: Safe, Effective, Caring, Responsive and Well-led. This included how the practice provided effective and responsive care across the six population groups. The six population groups are:

• Older people
• People with long-term conditions
• Families, children and young people
• Working age people (including those recently retired and students)
• People whose circumstances may make them vulnerable
• People experiencing poor mental health (including people with dementia)

Up until 1 April 2019, two GP practices worked within Northfield Health Centre: St Heliers Medical Practice (which was also known as Dr Ross and Partners) and Dr Ali and Partners. On the 1 April 2019, the two practices joined together in an official merger to create a single practice working from Northfield Health Centre. Following which, Dr Abad Ali joined St Heliers as a GP partner. The newly formed practice is known as St Heliers Medical Practice.

You can read the reports from our last inspections by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Dr Ali & Partners and for St Heliers Medical Practice on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

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.

Following this inspection we have rated the practice as good for providing Safe, Effective, Caring, Responsive and Well-led services. This includes how the practice provides effective and responsive care to the six population groups. Therefore, the practice is rated as good overall.

We found that:

• There were clear and effective processes for managing risks and the practice had clear systems, practices and processes to keep people safe and safeguarded from abuse.
• The practice had systems for the appropriate and safe use of medicines, including medicines optimisation.
• There was evidence of systems and processes for learning and continuous improvement. The practice worked together and with other organisations to deliver effective care and treatment.
• The practice had a clear vision and credible strategy, they involved the public, staff and external partners to sustain high quality and sustainable care.
• Feedback and survey responses were positive about meeting patient needs and about the way staff treated people. Staff described the practice as a positive, friendly and an open environment in which to work.
• To ease patient anxiety, the practice developed bespoke letters to inform patients and provide further guidance following blood tests, as well as for other areas such as appointments for medicines reviews. We noted that the letters were informative and where appropriate also gave additional advice for areas such as nutrition and lifestyle.

(Please see the specific details on action required at the end of this report).

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Continue with efforts to improve uptake of cervical cancer screening.
• Record the cleaning of medical equipment in line with good record keeping for infection prevention and control.
• Continue to engage patients experiencing poor mental health (including dementia) in attending appointments for reviews and care planning.

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