Archived: Radford Medical Practice Also known as Student Health Centre, Nottingham Trent University

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We inspected Radford Medical Practice on 03 November 2014, as part of our new comprehensive inspection programme. The practice had not previously been inspected.

The provider has a total patient list size of 16,700; with 13,400 registered students at the practice we inspected and 3,300 patients registered at the other location.

Our key findings were as follows:

• Patients reported good access to the practice and continuity of care, with urgent appointments being made available on most occasions.
• The appointment system was flexible and enabled patients to access care and treatment outside university and working hours.
• The practice had appropriate systems in place to keep patients safe.
• The practice was caring and patients were treated with kindness and respect.
• An open culture and team based approach was promoted within the practice. Staff felt well supported with their professional development and enabled to carry out their work effectively.
• The practice staff were all committed to improving the quality of care and services provided for the student population.
• The practice was proactive in promoting health promotion, screening and prevention. This included:
• opportunistic “roadshows” in student halls of residence where sexual health, alcohol and drug use information and advice was provided;
• integrated work with Nottingham Trent University and Public Health in cases of health outbreaks:
• chlamydia treatment and then making referrals to a local health centre for contact tracing. Contact tracing involves finding and informing the contacts of a person with an infection so they can get information, testing and treatment.
• Information and advice on sexual health was provided in different formats and languages including French, Arabic and Chinese.

All these initiatives had made a positive impact on patient’s awareness of health promotion and disease prevention.

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

Action the provider should take to improve

• The practice should ensure that a yearly infection control audit is completed.

• The practice should ensure clear signage for the self-monitoring BP machine is in place for students to easily access the service.

• The practice should ensure that all staff receive training updates in line with the provider’s stipulated frequency so as to be assured that staff have up to date knowledge to perform their roles.
• The practice should ensure that changes made to processes and systems after significant event findings are reviewed to evaluate impact in quality improvement.
• The practice should ensure the recording of all clinical meetings where patient information and NICE guidelines are discussed to strengthen the evidence of case management work undertaken and peer support.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP

Chief Inspector of General Practice