Dr Taylor, Dr Hofmann, Dr Idowu and Dr Ghosh

Background to this inspection

Updated 12 October 2017

Dr Taylor, Dr Hofmann, Dr Idowu and Dr Ghosh (also known as Town Medical Centre) is situated in Sevenoaks, Kent. The practice is aligned to the NHS West Kent Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and has a general medical services contract with NHS England for delivering primary care services to the local community.

The practice has a patient population of approximately 6,300. The proportion of patients who are aged 15 to 34 years is lower than the national average and the proportion of patients aged 35 to 54 years and over 85 years is higher than the national average. The practice is in an area with a low deprivation score, and lower than average levels of unemployment.

Consultation and treatment rooms are located on the first floor of a grade II listed building. There is a lift for access to the first floor. Three of the consulting rooms are located down two steps from the waiting room. Staff told us that they would arrange for patients who had difficulty using the stairs to be seen in one of the consulting rooms on the same level as the waiting room. There is no patient parking, including disabled parking, at the practice. The practice is located in the town centre with access to a number of pay and display car parks, as well as public transport services.

There are four GP partners (two male and two female). One of the partners is full time and three are part time. There are two practice nurses and one health care assistant (all female). In addition, there is a practice manager as well as a team of reception and administrative staff.

The practice is open between 8am and 6.30pm Monday to Friday. Appointments are available between 8am and 10.30am, and between 2pm and 5pm most days. Extended hours appointments are offered from 7am to 8am on Tuesday and Friday.

There are arrangements with other providers (Integrated Care 24) to deliver services to patients outside of the practice’s working hours.

Services are provided from: Town Medical Centre, 25 London Road, Sevenoaks, Kent, TN13 1AR.

Overall inspection

Good

Updated 12 October 2017

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Dr Taylor, Dr Hofmann, Dr Idowu and Dr Ghosh on 15 December 2016. The overall rating for the practice was requires improvement. The practice was rated as requires improvement for providing safe, effective and well-led services and rated as good for providing caring and responsive services. The full comprehensive report on the December 2016 inspection can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Dr Taylor, Dr Hofmann, Dr Idowu and Dr Ghosh on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

This inspection was an announced focused inspection carried out on 14 September 2017, to confirm that the practice had carried out their plan to meet the legal requirements, in relation to the breaches in regulations that we identified in our previous inspection on 15 December 2016. This report covers our findings in relation to those requirements and also additional improvements made since our last inspection.

Overall the practice is now rated as good.

Our key findings were as follows:

All staff were trained to the appropriate level in safeguarding children.
The practice had improved its systems and processes to assess and manage the risks of legionella and the safe management of blank prescriptions.
The practice carried out the necessary recruitment checks prior to employing staff.
The practice had adequate equipment and staff were now appropriately trained to respond to medical and other emergencies.
There was an induction programme for newly appointed staff and an overall training schedule that ensured staff received training appropriate to their roles. There was an effective system that ensured all staff received annual appraisals.
The practice’s patient administration systems included only current staff.
The practice was investigating improvements to the telephone access system for patients.
There were effective arrangements to monitor and improve quality and identify risk.

We found one area where the provider should make improvement:

The number of carers identified on the practice’s system was 10, which was less than 1% of the patient list. The provider should implement a pro-active system that identifies patients who are also carers to help ensure they are offered relevant additional support.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP)

Chief Inspector of General Practice