A HARLOW GP surgery has been told by inspectors that it requires improvement.

Nuffield House in The Stow was inspected on October 12th, 2020 and the report was published in December.

The report states:

WE carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Nuffield House Doctors Surgery on 12 October 2020. This inspection was to follow up on breaches of regulations identified at a previous inspection on 4 November 2019 and to provide new ratings for the practice.

We took account of the exceptional circumstances arising as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic when considering how we carried out this inspection. We therefore undertook some of the inspection processes remotely and spent less time on site. We conducted staff interviews between 5 October and 8 October 2020 and carried out a site visit on 12 October 2020.

At the previous comprehensive inspection of 4 November 2019, the practice was rated as inadequate overall and placed into special measures. Safe and effective were rated as requires improvement and caring, responsive and well-led were rated as inadequate. A warning notice was issued in respect of the governance at the practice. 

We had scheduled an inspection to follow up on the warning notice earlier this year although this was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, we followed up on the warning notice at this inspection. The provider has met the requirements of this warning notice.

There have been five previous inspections of this practice, four of which were comprehensive inspections where ratings were awarded and one, a focused inspection. The focused inspection was carried out to ensure compliance with a warning notice that was served following the 2017 inspection. The focused inspection was not rated.

The previous inspection history is as follows:-

• Comprehensive inspection on 27 October 2016. The practice was rated as required improvement overall, with safe, effective and well-led rated as requires improvement. 
• Follow-up comprehensive inspection on 8 August 2017 and 5 September 2017. The practice was rated as inadequate overall and placed into special measures for a period of six months. The practice was issued with a warning notice.
• Focused inspection on 20 March 2018. The practice had complied with the warning notice.
• Comprehensive inspection on 21 May 2018. The practice was rated as requires improvement, with effective, caring, responsive and well-led rated as requires improvement.
• Comprehensive inspection on 29 April 2019. The practice was rate as requires improvement overall with well-led rated as inadequate. 

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 requires improvement overall.

We rated the practice requires improvement for people with long-term conditions because:

• Not all patients with diabetes were identified and coded on systems to enable treatment and monitoring.

We rated the practice requires improvement for safe because:

• Not all patients prescribed high risk medicines were being monitored.
• We found instances where changes to prescribing guidelines had not been incorporated into prescribing practice.

We rated the practice requires improvement for caring because:

• The practice needed to continue to embed improvements in patient satisfaction into routine systems.

The provider must:

• Establish effective systems and processes to ensure good governance in accordance with the fundamental standards of care.

The provider should: 

• Embed improvements made in respect of care and access patient survey data into the day to day running of the practice.
• Continue to identify patients on the practice list who are carers.

I am taking this service out of special measures. This recognises the significant improvements made to the quality of care provided by this service.

The full report can be found below.

https://www.cqc.org.uk/location/1-551423915/inspection-summary