A MEDICAL practice in Andover still 'requires improvement' despite receiving praise in the latest report from the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
The report on The Andover Health Centre Medical Practice, in Charlton Road, was published on August 12 and details the most recent assessment which took place on February 19.
The assessment looked at the quality of five key categories and provided a rating of either inadequate, requires improvement, good or outstanding in each category.
The categories are safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led.
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Of the five categories, only two were deemed good, these being caring and responsive. The others were found to require improvement.
In a previous report, an assessment which was undertaken between January 25 and 29 assessed the medical centre on the following categories: Safe, Effective, Responsive and Well-led.
Assessors found concerns in the management of people’s medicines, care and treatment for people with long-term conditions.
The report continued: "People affected by safety alerts which resulted in three breaches of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 in relation to Safe care and treatment, Staffing and Good governance.
"Following this assessment, the overall rating for The Andover Health Centre Medical Practice has changed from Good to Requires Improvement."
Following the latest assessment, the CQC added: "People could access services when they needed to, without physical or digital barriers, including out of normal hours and in an emergency.
"People were given support to overcome barriers to ensure equal access. Leaders understood the challenges to patient access and responded to take account of people’s needs, including those with urgent needs.
"Services were designed to make them accessible and timely for people who were most likely to have difficulty accessing care. The provider prioritised, allocated resources and opportunities as needed to address inequalities and achieve equity of access."
The CQC found that people's experience of the service was: "Overall, patients had a positive experience of using the service.
"GP patient survey data from July 2023 showed 86.5 per cent were satisfied with appointment access compared to 72.8 per cent locally.
"The GP patient survey also demonstrated that 93 per cent of patients felt they received person-centred care at the practice."
Readers can find the full report by clicking here: https://www.cqc.org.uk/location/1-546127477
Amanda Goddard, practice manager of The Andover Health Centre Medical Practice, said: “We are pleased to see that in our Care Quality Commission (CQC) report that people said their overall experience was positive, particularly in relation to person-centred care, that people felt listened to and were treated with dignity and respect.
“The CQC identified some areas for improvement during their inspection which we have acted swiftly to address.
“We have improved our medication review process, and monitoring of long-term conditions and have taken on an additional member of administration staff to support this.
“The backlog of note summaries has been cleared and we have appointed a lead nurse to manage our new processes.
“In addition, we have improved our communication around complaints establishing whole practice meetings to discuss the issues raised and improved staff training.
“While we accept most of the findings in the report, we would also like to reflect our concerns around the inspection process and the significant delay in receiving our report. Our inspection took place in January and the report was not published until July.
“This is something we have flagged with the CQC team, which has nationally acknowledged, the changes they implemented to its processes have made things more difficult than they should have been.
“However, we will continue to work through the recommendations in the report, and take on all feedback, to provide our patients with the best care we can.
“I want to say thank you to the practice team for all their hard work and effort, and of course to our patients, who on the whole are happy with their care.”
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