Lessons for Pharmacy Professionals from Recent CQC Inspection

On the 28th of March, 2024, the CQC released an informative update on the outcome of its recent inspection of Harlow GP. This infection has resulted in a drop in the overall rating from good to inadequate, with a resultant ongoing review by the CQC and the adoption of further enforcement action.

These are the features of the actual inspection:

• An announced site visit.
• Conducting staff interviews using video conferencing.
• Completing clinical searches on the practice’s patient records system (this was with consent from the provider and inline 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.

The practice was rated against the five inspection criteria for GP practices and faired as follows:

With several pharmacists now becoming GP partners and ARRS pharmacy roles receiving training on how to help practices prepare for CQC inspections, as part of the Primary Care Pharmacy Education Pathway, there is scope for pharmacy professionals to learn from and help in such situations. They include the following.

Ensuring Safe Processes

• Ensure that systems and processes to keep people safe and safeguarded from abuse are consistently implemented.
• Maintain staff vaccinations in line with UK Health and Security (UKHSA) guidance.
• Remove gaps in systems to assess, monitor and manage risks to patient safety.
• Store vaccines appropriately to ensure they remain safe and effective.
• Keep high standards of cleanliness and hygiene.
• Have an effective system to learn and make improvements when things went wrong.

Ensuring Effective Services

• Monitor diagnoses to avoid potential missed diagnoses of some long term conditions.
• Follow local and national guidance in the management of people with long term conditions.
• You should be able to demonstrate that all staff have the skills, knowledge, and experience to carry out their roles.

Showing that the Service is Caring

• Complete that National GP Patient Survey and show evidence of acting on evidence that shows that patient satisfaction about their experience of the practice has decreased or is below local and national targets.
• Undertake an analysis of the needs of the local population.

Showing that the Practice is Providing Responsive Services

• Act on any evidence that indicates that National GP Patient Survey results are below local and national averages or that patients are not able to access appointments and treatments in a timely way.
• Show evidence that you use complaints to improve the quality of care.
• Actively seek and act on feedback from patients.

Showing that services are well-led

• Governance and management arrangements must be effective, for example cold chain processes and the management of emergency equipment must be ineffective.
• There should be no gaps in the systems and processes for managing risk.
• Share the practice vision and strategy with all staff.
• Maintain a practice culture that always effectively supports the delivery of high-quality sustainable care.
• Engage with patients about their experience of the practice.

The Chief Inspector listed other actions for the practice, including the following:

• Complete risk assessments of emergency medicines arrangements.
• Take action to manage the ongoing management of historical safety alerts within the national alerts system policy.
• Improve the coding of patients within clinical systems.
• Improve the process for managing test results, to ensure timely review of abnormal test results.
• Take steps to review all patients on long-term steroids to ensure that all patients prescribed oral steroids for an asthma exacerbation are following up in accordance with NICE guidelines.
• Continue efforts to identify and undertake second cycle audits to promote quality improvement.
• Implement systems to manage, control and mitigate risk relating to the practice.
• Continue to take action to reinvigorate an active Patient Participation Group (PPG).

You may access the overall summary here.

If you wish to see other updates of relevance from the CQC and other organisations, please click here: