A WINCHESTER GP surgery requires improvement over its management of medicines and care for people with long-term conditions, a recent report said. 

Friarsgate Practice, in Stockbridge Road, Weeke, was given a rating of 'requires improvement' after the Care Quality Commission (CQC) published a report on June 17. 

Inspectors visited the practice, which has 24,500 patients, last December. 

It was last inspected in 2019, when it was rated as 'good'. It was also rated on various aspects: safety - good, effective - good; caring - good; responsive - outstanding; and well-led - good.

This time, they rated: safety - requires improvement; effective - good; caring - good; responsive - outstanding and well-led - requires improvement.

The report said: “People with long-term health conditions and those prescribed high-risk medicines were not always monitored to ensure their health did not deteriorate. When medicine reviews did take place, records were not always sufficiently comprehensive to demonstrate it was safe to continue prescribing. 

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Friarsgate Practice (Image: Google Street View)

“People’s feedback in relation to the safe management of their medicines was limited. However, people told us they had a good response when making repeat prescription requests. The practice vaccine programme was well coordinated. Further feedback confirmed that acute prescriptions were arranged promptly following consultations.”

The report added: “During our on-site visit, we observed that the practice had medicines stored for emergencies. These were kept up to date and monitored. The practice had not risk assessed whether they had stored a specific emergency medicine and did not have a protocol in place for all expected emergencies. Appropriate facilities were available for the storage of medicines and regular audit took place on stocks, and particularly the medicines fridges."

On the category of 'responsive', which was rated outstanding, the report said: “We noted that 95 per cent of respondents to the GP patient survey stated that during their last GP appointment they were involved as much as they wanted to be in decisions about their care and treatment.”

Victoria Piekarz, practice manager, said: “In healthcare, the only constant element is change, and Friarsgate continues to prove its 'outstanding' CQC rating for being responsive, always striving to be adaptive, dynamically reviewing and changing processes in order to offer the best patient care we can. We acknowledge that some areas for improvement have been identified during our CQC inspection - we have worked with CQC to ensure that these systems have already been reviewed and where necessary rectified. We would welcome CQC re-inspection at any point.

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“We would also like to reflect our concerns around the inspection process and the significant delay in receiving our report - a delay over six months.

“In response to these concerns raised with CQC, we have received a written apology from CQC for the delay in the publication of this report, resultant from their new style inspection, which appears to have caused reporting delays wider than our practice alone. 

Ms Piekarz added: “All the staff at Friarsgate work incredibly hard to care for our 24,500 patients in the best way possible and offering the best care pathway possible. We will take on board the CQC feedback and work with our patients to ensure we continue to deliver the best possible care.

"We remain very proud of our constant openness and flexibility to review and respond to feedback, and the positives such adaptability brings. Recently introducing direct online booking for both face-to-face or telephone appointments, with a patient's own GP for best continuity of care for ongoing conditions, or with an alternative GP for ad hoc issues for more time convenience. 

“We will continue to work to respond to all feedback in a positive manner, whether from CQC or our own patient population, whilst also acknowledging that the NHS is not an easy environment at present - with rising waiting lists and significant funding issues. However, as a strong team we approach the future with optimism and dedication to provide the best patient care, knowing that all feedback continually strengthens our outputs even further.”