We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Shenley Green Surgery on 14 March 2019 as part of our inspection programme.
At the last inspection in December 2015 we rated the practice as good for providing safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led services.
At this inspection, we found that the providers had mainly moved in line with changes within the healthcare economy and had shaped the practice to sustain delivery of high quality services in some areas. However, we found changes did not routinely support delivery of high quality services.
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 required improvement overall due to concerns in providing safe, caring, responsive and well led services. These requires improvement areas impacted on all population groups and so we have rated all population groups as requires improvement.
We rated the practice as requires improvement for providing safe, caring, responsive and well-led services because:
- Staff we spoke with demonstrated how to recognise and respond to safety concerns; however, records we viewed showed some clinical staff had completed safeguarding training appropriate to their role.
- The practice did not have a process for assessing the different responsibilities and activities of non-clinical staff to determine if they required a Disclosure and Baring Service (DBS) check.
- The practice learned and made improvements when things went wrong.
- The way the practice was led and managed mostly promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centre care. However, oversight of the governance framework in areas, such as monitoring of training, recruitment checks and management of environmental risks were not carried out effectively.
- During our inspection, we saw that staff treated patients with kindness, respect and explained how they involved patients in decisions about their care.
- However, the practice scored below local and national averages in the 2018 national GP patient survey for questions relating to continuity of care and access. The practice were aware of this and were actively taking action to improve patient’s satisfaction.
- The practice implemented changes to the appointment system to improve patients access to care and treatment in a timely way. However; at the time of our inspection, the practice were unable to demonstrate whether patient satisfaction had improved.
We rated the practice as good for providing effective, caring and responsive services because:
- Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs.
- The practice operated a programme of quality improvement activities and routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of care provided. The practice monitored data such as Quality Outcomes Framework (QoF) performance and carried out actions to improve performance which were not in line with local or national averages.
The areas where the provider must make improvements are:
- Ensure persons employed in the provision of the regulated activity receive the appropriate support, training and professional development, to enable them to carry out the duties.
- Establish effective systems and processes to ensure good governance in accordance with the fundamental standards of care.
The provider should:
- Improve the identification of carers to enable this group of patients to access the care and support they need.
- Continue taking action to improve areas where patient satisfaction is below local and national averages.
- Continue reviewing action plans and changes implemented as a result of quality improvement activities.
- Continue taking action to improve the uptake of national screening programmes such as cervical screening as well as improve areas where Quality Outcomes Framework performance were not in line with local and national averages.
Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.
Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGPChief Inspector of General Practice