Boston GP surgery receives improved rating from healthcare watchdog

A Boston GP practice told to improve by inspectors just last year has now been praised for the services it provides.

Inspectors from the Care Quality Commission rated the Parkside Medical Centre on Tawney Street as “requires improvement” in May 2016, before visiting the surgery again in January 2017.

A report published on March 13 ranked the overall service as ‘good’.

Inspectors said that the safety of the service the practice provides to its 14,250 patients was much improved, especially in identifying patients at risk from certain drugs.

The effectiveness of the practice was also described as more “systematic” and “structured”.

The report said: “There were systems in place to ensure that patients were protected from the risks associated with the prescribing of medicines considered to pose an elevated risk.

“There were clear systems in place to ensure that that safety alerts from the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency were dealt in a manner that promoted patient safety.

“Guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence was available to all staff and GPs.

“The practice had completed full cycle clinical audits and continued to do so.

“The practice had taken positive steps to help staff identify carers and had increased the number of identified carers from 0.3% to 2.6% of the patient list.”