We carried out a review of the data available to us about Hildenborough & Tonbridge Medical Group on 6 July 2023. We have not found evidence that we need to carry out an inspection or reassess our rating at this stage.
This could change at any time if we receive new information. We will continue to monitor data about this service.
If you have concerns about Hildenborough & Tonbridge Medical Group, you can give feedback on this service.
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Hildenborough & Tonbridge Medical Group on 21 November 2016. The overall rating for the practice was good. The practice was rated as requires improvement for providing safe services and rated as good for providing effective, caring, responsive and well-led services. The full comprehensive report on the November 2016 inspection can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Hildenborough & Tonbridge Medical Group on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
This inspection was an announced focused inspection conducted on 7 September 2017 to confirm that the practice had carried out their plan to meet the legal requirements, in relation to the breaches in regulations that we identified in our previous inspection on 21 November 2016. This report covers our findings in relation to those requirements and also additional improvements made since our last inspection.
Overall the practice is now rated as good.
Our key findings were as follows:
The practice had ensured that the system for reporting and recording significant events was implemented effectively.
Risks to patients who used services were assessed and the systems and processes to address these risks ensured patients were kept safe. In particular, the risks associated with medicines management, as well as infection prevention and control.
The practice had also taken appropriate action to address areas where they should make improvements:
Dispensing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) had been signed by all relevant staff.
Action had been taken to ensure that cold chain storage and medicine safety alerts were appropriately recorded.
Dispensing errors and near misses were being recorded by dispensary staff in order to enable learning.
Processes had been revised in order to ensure that minutes of meetings were detailed and demonstrated accountability.
The programme of clinical audits had been further developed and was being monitored.
Chief Inspector of General Practice
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Hildenborough and Tonbridge Medical Group on 21 November 2016. Overall the practice is rated as good.
Our key findings across all the areas we inspected were as follows:
The areas where the provider must make improvement are:
The areas where the provider should make improvement are:
Chief Inspector of General Practice
Hildenborough & Tonbridge Medical Group is a GP practice providing primary care services for people in Hildenborough, Kent and the surrounding area. It is a large practice with multiple partners and provides primary care services for about 16,500 people. There are two main surgery sites, Hildenborough Medical Centre and Trenchwood Medical Centre. There are also branch surgeries in the nearby villages of Leigh and Weald, but we did not visit these as part of this inspection.
As part of the inspection we talked with the local Clinical Commissioning Group, the local Healthwatch, members of the Patient Participation Group, patients who were at the Hildenborough Medical Centre on the day of the inspection, GPs, doctors, clinical staff and administrative staff at the practice.
Patients we spoke with were very satisfied with the care they had received and told us that they felt involved in their care. They felt their medical issues were taken seriously and that they had sufficient time during their appointments. The recent patient survey reflected this view. However the patient survey showed that 35% of patients did not find it easy to get through to reception on the telephone. Patients said that they could always get an urgent appointment when it was required.
We saw an effective system was in place to learn from significant events. There were processes in place to protect people from abuse. Clinical audit was carried out across a range of activities and staff were aware of the importance of working with other services. Although concern was raised about accessing the practice via telephone in the morning, all of the patients we spoke with were complimentary about the care they received from the practice and we observed that staff were caring. We saw that there was evidence of a strong clinical governance that ensured the practice learnt from events and patient feedback.