We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Collingham Medical Centre (previously known as Dr Lisa Terrill & Partners) on 15 November 2016. The overall rating for the practice was good, with a rating of requires improvement for the responsive section of the report. The full comprehensive report on the November 2016 inspection can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Collingham Medical Centre on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
This inspection was an announced focused inspection carried out on 5 February 2018 to confirm that the practice had addressed the areas for improvement that we identified in our previous inspection on 15 November 2016. This report covers our findings in relation to those improvements made since our last inspection.
Our key findings were as follows:
At our previous inspection on 15 November 2016, we rated the practice as requires improvement for providing responsive services because patients sometimes experienced difficulties in accessing appointments. At this inspection we found that the arrangements in respect of access to appointments had significantly improved. Consequently, the practice is now rated as good for providing responsive services.
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National GP patient survey data showed patients’ satisfaction with how they could access care and treatment had increased since our previous inspection and was comparable to local and national averages. This was supported by patients spoken with during this inspection.
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The practice had introduced new staff roles to enable them to make better use of clinical resources and direct patients to the most appropriate response.
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A programme of regular auditing was used to oversee appointment availability and to identify areas for improvement.
At our previous inspection we identified two other areas where we had asked the provider to make improvements:
At this inspection we found that improvements had been made in both these areas.
The recall arrangements for patients prescribed high risk medicines had been strengthened. There was a clear protocol in place, which included a register of patients requiring this type of monitoring, and we found this was being implemented reliably. If patients failed to attend for their blood tests the practice made repeated attempts to contact and encourage them to do so. Clinicians were kept informed about patients whose tests were overdue so they could consider risk and discuss with the patient if they attended the practice for other reasons. The practice had carried out an audit to help drive improvement in this area. A second audit had also been completed in January 2018 and showed that improvements had been achieved.
The practice had established a new PPG in October 2017. There was a formal structure for this group, including terms of reference and regular, minuted meetings. During this inspection we reviewed documents relating to the PPG and met members of the group. The PPG had identified communication between patients and the practice as a key area for improvement and were supporting the production and sharing of written information for display and distribution. This included a newsletter, updating the practice website, reception area notice boards and circulating information throughout the local area, to help make it more easily accessible to patients. During January 2018, the PPG had promoted the completion of Friends and Family feedback cards, resulting in 88 completed responses, which was a significant increase in comparison to previous months. These responses were to be reviewed at the next PPG meeting and an action plan prepared to take forward the findings from this.
Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP)
Chief Inspector of General Practice