Petroc Group Practice

Updated 2 April 2024

Petroc Group Practice is an NHS GP practice, providing Primary care to a population of approximately 16,835 patients in St Columb Major. At our assessment in June 2023, the practice was placed into special measures and rated inadequate overall and inadequate in the key questions safe, and well-led, requires improvement in effective and responsive and good in Caring. We carried out a follow-up assessment of this service from 30 April 2024 to 8 May 2024 to assess all of the quality statements in each key question.

We found improvements made in safe and effective staffing and health and safety systems. However, we also found breaches in Regulation 12, safe care and treatment, and Regulation 17, good governance. There were issues regarding the management of patients with long term conditions and the management of patients who were prescribed medicines that required monitoring and medicine reviews were not always up to date. The practice had not always adhered to its policies and had not always involved patients in the review of their medicines. We found improvements were needed to ensure patient safety when they moved between different services. We also found better governance and oversight was needed for ensuring safe and sustainable working systems were in place and embedded for delivering good care and treatment to patients. The practice is now rated requires improvement overall and in the key questions safe and well led, and good in responsive, effective and caring. We are taking this service out of special measures. This recognises the improvements that have been made to the quality of service provided by this practice. We have asked the provider for an action plan in response to the 2 breaches of regulations we found at this assessment.

Updated 2 April 2024

The results of the national GP Patient Survey published in 2024 for the practice, were below local and national average scores for all indicators.

Patients who provided feedback on care to the CQC, mostly gave negative feedback about accessibility to the service. The feedback about the experience of interaction with staff and staff attitude was mixed, with mostly being negative and one being positive. There was a Patient Participation Group (PPG) at its early stages of formation and was recruiting for new members to ensure wider participation from the patient population. However, the practice had not actively involved patients in the process of service planning and making improvements.

There was a process for dealing with patients' complaints. However, patients told us that their concerns and complaints had not always being responded to.

There were systems in place for reviewing people’s care and treatment. However, we found that these were not always effective and patients with long term conditions had not always received a timely review and management of their care and treatment and that patients had not always been involved in the review of their care and treatment.