CQC inspectors highlight good care as reports are published on 63 more GP practices

Friday 02 Oct 2015 @ 09:10
Care Quality Commission

The Chief Inspector of General Practice has found another 39 GP practices to be Good following recent inspections by the Care Quality Commission.

This week, CQC has published a further 63 reports on the quality of care provided by GP practices that have been inspected by specialist teams of inspectors.

Of those, 39 of the practices have been rated as Good, 18 have been rated Requires Improvement, five have been rated Inadequate and one was a focused inspection*.

Under CQC’s new programme of inspections, all of England’s GP practices are being given a rating according to whether they are safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led. Since 1 October 2015, 71 GP practices have been rated as Outstanding.

Professor Steve Field, Chief Inspector of General Practice, said:

“After more than 2,000 inspections we now have the evidence that the vast majority of England's GP practices are providing a service which is safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led. We have also found so many practices going far beyond the call of duty to care for patients to provide an outstanding service to their patients.

"But, unfortunately, there are still areas of practice that are inadequate and unacceptable. Patients have a right to expect high quality care from every GP practice. Where improvement is required we will expect the practice to take the necessary steps to address the issues and we will re-inspect at a later date to check that those improvements have been made.

"Practices rated Inadequate that are put into Special Measures are offered additional support by NHS England which is working with the RCGP to help the practice get back on track. We have already seen the benefits of this approach when we re-inspect."

Full reports on all 62 inspections are available on this website.

GP Practices listed by CCG area and rating:

For further information, please contact Helen Gildersleeve, Regional Engagement Manager on 0191 2333379. Journalists wishing to speak to the press office outside of office hours can find out how to contact the team here. Please note: the press office is unable to advise members of the public on health or social care matters. For general enquiries, please call 03000 61 61 61.

Notes to editors

Please note that we have published separate press releases on the practices rated Inadequate.

* Focused inspections are smaller in scale than comprehensive inspections, although they follow a similar process. These are carried out to check on specific areas we are concerned about, which might have been raised during a comprehensive inspection or through our monitoring work.

GP practices will receive a rating following an inspection by specialist teams including GPs and practice nurses and experts by experience (people with personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses the type of services we are inspecting).

To get to the heart of people’s experiences of care, we always ask the following five questions of services.

Are they safe?
Are they effective?
Are they caring?
Are they responsive to people’s needs?
Are they well-led?

For every NHS GP practice we will look at the quality of care for the following six population groups: Older people, People with long-term conditions, Families, children and young people, Working age people (including those recently retired and students), People whose circumstances may make them vulnerable, People experiencing poor mental health (including people with dementia).

Since 1 April, providers have been required to display their ratings on their premises and on their websites so that the public can see their rating quickly and easily. Further information on the requirement for providers to prominently display their CQC ratings.

In July 2015 CQC launched a new online toolkit for GPs, featuring examples of outstanding practice that inspectors have found in GP surgeries across England. The toolkit, at www.cqc.org.uk/outstandingprimarycare, intends to provide real-world, illustrative examples of high quality general practice that other providers can refer to.

About the Care Quality Commission

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and social care in England.

We make sure health and social care services provide people with safe, effective, compassionate, high-quality care and we encourage care services to improve.

We monitor, inspect and regulate services to make sure they meet fundamental standards of quality and safety and we publish what we find to help people choose care.

Channel website: http://www.cqc.org.uk/

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