Portsmouth GP practice improves to be rated Good by CQC

Last August, health watchdog the Care Quality Commission (CQC) visited Waverley Road Surgery, in Southsea, and deemed it to be inadequate.

But since then Craneswater Group Practice, which runs the surgery, has made improvements and on its most recent visit the CQC rated it as good.

Dr Nick Moore, one of the partners who leads on CQC issues in the practice, said: ‘We are delighted with this rating and are pleased that the CQC has recognised the hard work put in by our team in delivering the improvements we have made.

‘We hope these will further enhance services to our patients.

‘We were previously rated as good in the caring and responsive domains but now we are rated as good in all areas which is a great credit to everyone in our team.

‘We would also like to thank Portsmouth Clinical Commissioning Group, which supported us throughout the process of being in special measures and who oversaw our action plan.’

As previously reported in The News the inadequate rating was given after the inspector found risk procedures were not always implemented to deliver safe care; processes for handling medicines were not followed and adequate systems were not in place to ensure staff had the relevant training.

But following the latest visit, the CQC noted:

n There was an open approach to safety.

n Practice policies and procedures were appropriately reviewed and updated.

n Systems were in place to monitor the cleanliness of the premises and protect patients from risk of infection.

n Systems and processes for ensuring all staff were suitably trained had been addressed.

Katie Hovenden, Portsmouth CCG’s director of primary care, said: ‘We know from previous surveys that patients already highly valued the services they received from the practice.

‘Patients should be further assured the practice has proved both responsive and flexible to put measures and processes in place to address the previous areas of concerns.’