Chingford Medical Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Chingford Medical Practice on 24 August 2023. Overall, the practice is rated as Good.

Ratings for each key question:

Safe - Good

Effective - Good

Caring - Good

Responsive - Good

Well-led - Good

Chingford Medical Practice was previously inspected in 2019 and 2018 under a different provider registration. In 2018 the provider was rated Good overall and for all key questions except for safe, which was rated requires improvement. In 2019, a focused follow up inspection was carried to follow up on breaches identified at the previous inspection and the provider was rated good for the safe key question.

The new provider registered with CQC in June 2021. This is the 1st inspection of this service under the new provider.

Why we carried out this inspection

We carried out this inspection in line with our inspection priorities.

How we carried out the inspection

This inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to spend a minimum amount of time on site.

This included:

• Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing.
• Completing clinical searches on the practice’s patient records system (this was with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements).
• Reviewing patient records to identify issues and clarify actions taken by the provider.
• Requesting evidence from the provider.
• A short site visit.

Our findings

We based our judgement of the quality of care at this service on a combination of:

• what we found when we inspected
• information from our ongoing monitoring of data about services and
• information from the provider, patients, the public and other organisations.

We have rated this practice as Good overall

We found that:

• The practice provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm.
• Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs.
• Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
• Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.
• The practice was equipped to respond to medical emergencies and staff were suitably trained in emergency procedures.
• The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centre care.

Whilst we found no breaches of regulations, the provider should:

• Continue to take action to improve uptake of childhood immunisations and cervical screening.
• Improve processes surrounding actioning historical MHRA alerts.
• Implement systems to ensure that medicines are in date, medicines logs correctly document all expiry dates and expiry dates are checked regularly.
• Take action to provide all staff with protected time to complete mandatory training.

Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.

Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA

Chief Inspector of Health Care