20 November 2019
During a routine inspection
Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice
We rated this service as Good overall. This service was previously inspected in July 2017 under a different location registration (which has since been deregistered). We did not identify any breaches of regulation and at that time, the service was not rated. The full comprehensive report on the July 2017 inspection can be found by selecting the ‘all services’ link for iPrimary Care Head Office on our website at www.cqc.org.uk
The key questions are rated as:
Are services safe? – Good
Are services effective? – Good
Are services caring? – Good
Are services responsive? – Good
Are services well-led? – Good
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at iPrimaryCare Head Office on 20 November 2019, as part of our inspection programme.
The service provides medical consultations via video link, through its website www.valahealth.com. Patients can request a GP consultation for assessment, diagnosis and management of non-urgent primary health care problems. Where deemed clinically appropriate, consultations also include a prescribing service. iPrimary Care Head Office is a low volume service with a clinical team currently comprising a doctor and a non-prescribing physician associate (physician associates work under the direct supervision of a doctor and carry out many similar tasks, including patient examination, diagnosis and treatment).
At this inspection we found:
•The service had good systems 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.
•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.
•Quality improvement activity (such as clinical and internal audit) supported the delivery of safe and patient centred care.
•The service had developed a bespoke protocol to ensure that staff involved and treated people with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
•Patients could 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.
We saw one area of outstanding practice:
•The service had created a set of online, induction training videos for new clinicians and which aimed to provide detail and context to areas such as video consultations, online prescribing and managing online emergencies. Leaders spoke positively about how the videos were part of a range of activities aimed at strengthening clinical governance, in advance of a service upscaling programme.
The areas where the provider should make improvements are:
•Take action to ensure a written policy is in place regarding patients’ consent to share information.
•Take action to implement a prescription monitoring protocol, monitoring against any form of abuse such as excessive prescription requests.