Beacon View Medical Centre

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

This practice is rated as Good overall. (Previous inspection January 2015 – Good)

The key questions are rated as:

Are services safe? – Requires improvement

Are services effective? – Good

Are services caring? – Good

Are services responsive? – Good

Are services well-led? - Good

As part of our inspection process, we also look at the quality of care for specific population groups. The population groups are rated as:

Older People – Good

People with long-term conditions – Good

Families, children and young people – Good

Working age people (including those recently retired and students – Good

People whose circumstances may make them vulnerable – Good

People experiencing poor mental health (including people with dementia) - Good

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Beacon View Medical centre on 11 December 2017 as part of our inspection programme.

At this inspection we found:

• The practice had some systems in place to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. However, they did not have a supply of Oxygen on the premises.
• They had not risk assessed the decision not to carry out a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check on non-clinical staff.
• There was no routine clinical oversight or review of secondary care patient related communications.
• The practice routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided. They had a comprehensive schedule of clinical audit and quality improvement activity that could demonstrate improvements to patient care and outcomes. They ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence-based guidelines.
• Staff involved and treated patients with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
• Patients found the appointment system easy to use and reported that they were able to access care when they needed it.
• There was a strong focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels of the organisation.

We saw areas of outstanding practice:

• The practice had secured funding to enable them to continue the FLORENCE project. This project enables patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease to be monitored remotely and had resulted in a 70% reduction rate in admissions to hospital for this group of patients.
• The practice drove a systematic programme of clinical audit and quality improvement activity that lead to improvements in patient care and outcomes

There were areas where the provider must make improvements:

• The provide should ensure that care and treatment is being provided in a safe way by doing all that is reasonably practicable to mitigate risks to the health and safety of service users.

The provider should also:

• Review and risk assess the decision not to carry out DBS checks on non-clinical staff
• Continue to monitor and improve telephone access and patient experience of making an appointment

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice