We carried out an announced focused follow-up inspection at South Queen Street Medical Centre on 19 March 2019 as part of our inspection programme.
At the last inspection on 19 July 2018 we rated the practice as good overall, with ratings of requires improvement for the domain of safe. At that time it was found the practice was in breach of Regulation 12 of the Health and Social Care Act (RA) Regulation 2014; safe care and treatment. The full comprehensive report regarding the July 2018 inspection can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for South Queen Street Medical Centre on our website at
The practice was rated as requires improvement for providing safe services because:
- Oversight of medical indemnity status and the professional registration of clinicians was not maintained.
- Gaps in the immunity status records of clinical staff were not acted upon.
- Recruitment checks and training records for locum doctors were not consistently applied.
- Fire safety training was not undertaken on an annual basis in line with mandatory training guidance.
- Response letters to complainants did not include details of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, should they wish to escalate their concerns.
- Cleaning records were not available in relation to clinical equipment.
At this inspection, we found that the provider had satisfactorily addressed all the areas of concern which had been raised at the previous inspection.
We based our judgement of the quality of care at this service using a combination of what we found when we inspected, information from our ongoing monitoring of data about services and
information from the provider, patients, public and other organisations.
We have now rated this practice as good overall and good for all population groups.
We found that:
- The medical indemnity status and professional registrations of all clinicians, including locums, were kept. We saw evidence that these were up-to-date.
- There was clearly recorded evidence of the immunisation status of clinical staff. The practice had engaged with the local occupational health department to support the checking of status and the provision of immunisations.
- The recruitment protocol had been reviewed to ensure that all checks prior to recruitment were applied. Training records were maintained for all staff, including locums.
- All staff had received fire safety training and this was to be undertaken on an annual basis.
- There was evidence of cleaning records regarding clinical equipment.
- Details of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman and the local Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) were applied to each letter of response sent to complainants.
Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence table.
Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP
Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care