Agenda item

The Head of General Practice Inspection, South Region from the Care Quality Commission will attend the meeting to advise the Committee of the Commission’s approach to the inspection of GP services.

Discussion:

The Head of General Practice, Care Quality Commission (CQC) gave an introduction to the approach to the inspection of GP services.  She set out the areas of inspection undertaken by the Care Quality Commission and, in relation to inspecting GP services, stated that the inspections had commenced in October 2014.  The five key questions asked, in relation to GP services, were:

·         Is it safe?

·         Is it effective?

·         Is it caring?

·         Is it responsive?

·         Is it well-led?

The Care Quality Commission was keen to ensure that when mistakes were made by GP services that lessons were learned.

She then responded to Member questions/comments which included:

·         Sanctions available to the Care Quality Commission.   She stated that the ultimate sanction the Care Quality Commission has in relation to an inadequate service that does not improve in the required timescale, the registration of that service could be cancelled but this action would be rare. 

·         What was the current situation in relation to Medway GP inspections? –It was explained that as part of the pilot scheme 19 GP practices in Medway were inspected but not rated, since then 11 practices had been inspected and it was anticipated that the reports would be released shortly, showing that 8 were categorised as being good and 3 required some improvement.  It was pointed out that Medway had a large proportion of single handed practices with larger than average patient  lists which could cause issues in relation to access to a GP. 

·         The importance of timely access to GPs to avoid unnecessary attendance at Accident and Emergency at the hospital. - The Chief Clinical Officer, NHS Medway, in connection with the issues raised about access to GPs stated that the responsibility for commissioning of GP services rested with NHS England rather than the Clinical Commissioning Group.  He then referred to the variation in funding across Clinical Commissioning Groups and stated that it was possible this could impact on access to GP services

The representative from Medway Pensioners Forum set out some issues which had been raised by Forum members in connection with GP services, in particular around the need for a named GP for people over 75 and the lack of clarity and accessibility of the CQC reports on GPs.

The Head of General Practice, CQC, stated that the Care Quality Commission were looking into ways of making reports available more speedily and ways of engaging further with the public.  She requested that her email contact details were given to Medway Pensioners Forum in order that contact could be made outside of the meeting and for this information to be set out in the record of this meeting, (shown below), for all Members of the Committee:

michele.golden@cqc.org.uk

The representative from Healthwatch Medway offered the services of Healthwatch with regards to making contact with the public and this was welcomed.

In response to a question, the Head of General Practice, CQC confirmed that work was ongoing in relation to prescribing practices to ensure that adequate care was taken around repeat prescriptions.

Decision:

The representative from the Care Quality Commission was thanked for her l presentation and the report was noted.