This service is rated as Good overall.
The key questions are rated as:
Are services safe? – Requires Improvement
Are services effective? – Good
Are services caring? – Good
Are services responsive? – Outstanding
Are services well-led? – Good
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Farnham Integrated Care Services on 3 July 2019 as part of our inspection programme. This was the first inspection of this service.
Farnham Integrated Care Services is a federation of five NHS GP services. They provide support and additional services to the patients registered with these practices.
One of the GPs is the registered manager. A registered manager is a person who is registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.
Our key findings were:
- The service had systems in place to manage risk, so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. When they did happen, the service learned from them and improved their processes.
- Some processes required a review, such as oversight of checks of the cold chain for medicines and escalation processes, and tracking and monitoring of blank prescription stationery.
- The service routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided. It ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence- based guidelines.
- Staff involved and treated people with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
- The provider had reviewed the needs of the local population and offered integrated services to promote patient care and welfare. This had had a positive impact on the local health system. Their interventions had reduced GP call outs, ambulance call outs, attendance at the Emergency department and admission to hospital.
- Patients were able to access care and treatment from the service within an appropriate timescale for their needs.
- There was a strong focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels of the organisation.
The areas where the provider must make improvements are:
- Ensure care and treatment is provided in a safe way to patients.
The areas where the provider should make improvements are:
- Review the intercollegiate guidance for child safeguarding (January 2019) and ensure this is considered in the service policy for safeguarding.
- Consider how gaps in employment are identified and managed during the recruitment process.
- Review the process for receiving and disseminating information to all clinicians relating to patient safety and medicines alerts. Consider how any actions (including awareness of the alerts) are recorded.
- Consider how consent can be monitored.
Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP
Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care