Upper Norwood Group Practice

Background to this inspection

Updated 30 March 2017

Upper Norwood Group Practice provides primary medical services in Upper Norwood to approximately 12000 patients and is one of 59 practices in Croydon Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). The practice population is in the fifth most deprived decile in England.

The practice population has a higher than CCG and national average representation of income deprived children and older people. The practice population of children is in-line with the CCG and national average and the practice population of working age people is higher than the CCG and national average; the practice population of older people is lower than the local and national average. Of patients registered with the practice for whom the ethnicity data was recorded 31% are white British, 13% are other white and 10% are black African.

The practice operates in converted premises. All patient facilities are wheelchair accessible. The practice has access to two doctors’ consultation rooms and one nurse consultation room on the lower ground floor, three doctors’ consultation rooms on the ground floor, two doctors’ consultation rooms on the first floor and two doctors’ consultation rooms on the second floor.

The clinical team at the surgery is made up of two full-time male GPs, two part-time male GPs who are partners, one part-time female salaried GP and one part-time female practice nurse. The non-clinical practice team consists of practice manager and 14 administrative and reception staff members. The practice provides a total of 45 GP sessions per week.

The practice operates under a Personal Medical Services (PMS) contract, and is signed up to a number of local and national enhanced services (enhanced services require an enhanced level of service provision above what is normally required under the core GP contract). The practice is a training practice for trainee doctors and medical students.

The practice reception and telephone lines are open from 8:00am till 6:30pm Monday to Friday. Appointments are available from 8:30am to 12:30pm and 3:00pm to 6:30pm every day. Extended hours surgeries are offered on Saturdays from 9:00am to 11:00am.

The practice has opted out of providing out-of-hours (OOH) services to their own patients between 6:30pm and 8:00am and directs patients to the out-of-hours provider for Croydon CCG.

The practice is registered as a partnership with the Care Quality Commission to provide the regulated activities of diagnostic and screening procedures, family planning, maternity and midwifery services, treatment of disease, disorder or injury and surgical procedures.

Overall inspection

Good

Updated 30 March 2017

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Upper Norwood Group Practice on 28 July 2016. The overall rating for the practice was requires improvement. The full comprehensive report on the July 2016 inspection can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Upper Norwood Group Practice on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

At our previous inspection on 28 July 2016, we rated the practice as requires improvement for providing safe services as the risks to patients were not always assessed and well managed including those related to health and safety, fire safety, chaperoning and recruitment checks for locum and permanent staff. Some of the staff had not undertaken training appropriate to their role including basic life support, safeguarding children and fire safety. Blank prescriptions were not securely stored and portable appliance testing was not undertaken as required.

At our previous inspection on 28 July 2016, we rated the practice as requires improvement for providing effective services as non-clinical staff were not receiving regular appraisals and some of the clinicians did not use problem oriented notes to record patient consultations.

At our previous inspection on 28 July 2016, we rated the practice as requires improvement for providing well-led services as the practice did not have an active Patient Participation Group and the practice policies and procedures were not regularly reviewed and updated.

This inspection was an announced focused inspection carried out on 8 March 2017 to confirm that the practice had carried out their plan to meet the legal requirements in relation to the breaches in regulations 12, 17 and 18 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 that we identified in our previous inspection on 28 July 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:

Risks to patients were assessed and well managed especially those related to health and safety, fire safety and chaperoning. Portable appliance testing was carried out as required.
Blank prescriptions were securely stored and the use of prescriptions was monitored.
The practice had an effective system in place to ensure role specific training was undertaken for all practice staff including basic life support, safeguarding children and fire safety.
Complaints processes in place were adequate.
The practice policies and procedures had been reviewed and updated.
The practice documented the discussions from meetings.
The practice proactively sought feedback from staff and patients and the PPG was recently re-established.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP

Chief Inspector of General Practice