Wateringbury Surgery

We carried out an announced inspection at Wateringbury Surgery on 2 September 2022. Overall, the practice is rated as Good.

Safe – Good

Effective - Requires Improvement

Caring - Good

Responsive - Good

Well-led - Good

Why we carried out this inspection

This was an announced comprehensive inspection to provide the practice with an up to date rating. At our previous inspection on 13 July 2016, the practice was rated Good overall.

The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Wateringbury Surgery on our website at www.cqc.org.uk

How we carried out the inspection

Throughout the pandemic CQC has continued to regulate and respond to risk. However, taking into account the circumstances arising as a result of the pandemic, and in order to reduce risk, we have conducted our inspections differently.

This inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to spend a minimum amount of time on site. This was with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements.

This included:

• Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing,
• Completing clinical searches on the practice’s patient records system and discussing findings with the provider,
• Reviewing patient records to identify issues and clarify actions taken by the provider.
• Requesting evidence from the provider,
• A short site visit,
• Staff surveys.

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 rated the practice Requires Improvement for providing effective services.

We found that:

• Our clinical record searches found improvement was required in relation to the safe management and monitoring of long-term conditions.

We rated the practice Good for providing safe, caring, responsive and well-led services.

We found that:

• The practice provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm.
• Where our clinical record searches found improvement was required in relation to the safe management and monitoring of high-risk medicines and patients with long-term conditions; the practice had made improvements and had a clear, comprehensive and realistic action plan to address this.
• Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
• The practice adjusted how it delivered services to meet the needs of patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.
• The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of person-centre care.

We found one breach of regulations. The provider must:

• Ensure care and treatment is provided in a safe way to patients.

The provider should:

• Continue with their action plan to ensure that all historical safety alerts were being routinely reviewed to ensure that patients being newly prescribed certain medicines were highlighted in the system to ensure the guidance was applied.
• Ensure that newly implemented procedures for legionella testing and emergency medicines are routinely monitored and embedded.

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 Hospitals and Interim Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services