A town centre GP surgery has been rated overall as 'good', a step up from its previous rating of 'requires improvement'.

Meadowside Medical Centre, on Mountbatten Way, Congleton, was inspected last month by the Care Quality Commission, which found that the centre had acted on recommendations made at the last inspection.

The last rating for the surgery of Dr C J Studds and Partners was 'requires improvement' (January 2019), when it was in breach of regulation.

Meadowside provides services to 7,884 patients.

The commission looked at five areas at the surgery and it was rated 'good' for its effectiveness, level of care, responsiveness, how safe the service is and its level of leadership.

At the last inspection in January 2019, CQC rated the practice as 'requires improvement' for providing safe and well-led services because: "There was a lack of systems and processes established and operated effectively to ensure compliance with requirements to demonstrate good governance.

"There were a lack of systems and processes to demonstrate the provider was doing all that was reasonably practicable to mitigate risks.

"The monitoring of the training needs of staff to enable them to carry out their roles and responsibilities appropriately and safely was not effective.

"Policies and procedures were not reviewed to ensure they were in line with current best practice. Internal audits were not effectively used to support improvement and mitigate risk.

"Some infection control practices required improvement. There was no documentary evidence to show that the competency of staff trained to carry out extended health care roles had been assessed.

"The monitoring of the temperatures of vaccine fridges was not effective. Meetings were not appropriately recorded and there was no evidence that learning and actions from incidents were shared with the whole staff team."

At last month's inspection, the inspectors found that the provider had satisfactory addressed the previous issues.

The inspectors rated the practice as 'good' and 'good' for all population groups.

They found that:

• The practice provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm.
• Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs.
• Staff dealt with patients with kindness and respect and involved them in decisions about their care.
• The practice organised and delivered services to meet patients' needs. Patients could access care and treatment in a timely way.
• The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of good quality, person-centre care.

• Review the system in place for managing safety alerts to ensure this is robust and demonstrates the actions taken.
• Review safeguarding arrangements to include setting up an alert for relevant others for children at risk.
• Review the arrangements for ensuring health checks have been carried out prior to prescribing high risk medicines.
• Introduce a programme of clinical audit in an aim to improve outcomes for patients.
• Review the emergency medicines held and ensure an appropriate risk assessment has been carried out if required.

The surgery is part of the Eastern Cheshire Clinical Commissioning Group.

The practice has three male GP partners, two salaried female GPs, two assistant practitioners, one healthcare assistant, administration and reception staff and a practice management team.

The inspectors said that the practice had a higher than average number of older patients compared to the national average: 22% of patients are over 65 years of age compared to a national average of 17%.

Forty five percent of the patient population has a long-standing health condition which is lower than the CCG average of 52%.

Life expectancy for both males and females are slightly above but close to the national average of 79 years for males and 83 years for females.

Information published by Public Health England, rates the level of deprivation within the practice population group as eight, on a scale of one to ten. Level one represents the highest levels of deprivation and level ten the lowest.

The inspection was led by a CQC inspector, the team included a second inspector and a GP specialist advisor.

The inspection was carried out on 4th February.