The recent launch of a new ‘zero tolerance’ policy towards the abuse of practice staff is the latest attempt by the NHS to reduce the number of assaults on NHS staff. Part of a new violence reduction strategy launched by the Department of Health and Social Care, the new, zero-tolerance approach aims to protect the…

Practices are to be spared overall increases in fees to the Care Quality Commission in the coming year – but will not benefit from successful cost-cutting, it has been announced. Some practices may face changes because of changes in patient numbers – but there will be no overall increase in fees, according to proposals published…

Practices are getting safer, inspectors have reported – and most have successfully passed inspections. The annual report of the Care Quality Commission found that 93% of practices are now rated as “safe.” Overall 91% of practices were rated as good and 5% as outstanding. Both represented one percentage point improvements on 2017. The Royal College…

The Caring KLOE is the shortest of all key lines of enquiry, but arguably the one with most impact on the patients and their families/carers. It’s also the one where no practice will ever feel they fall short of 100% compliance. Experience leads those involved in inspections to recognise that a culture of caring is…

Practices need to be responsive to patient needs – both individual and collective – something that I’ll focus on in this article. A good question to start with is ‘are your policies designed to be responsive to patients with special needs, especially under Equality legislation?’ The Key Line of Enquiry (KLOE) includes some very direct…

Continuing our focus on CQC inspections and the key lines of enquiry (KLOEs), in this article we concentrate on the ‘effective’ element. The effective KLOE is all about being good at showing how the practice employs evidence-based outcomes that enable patients to experience a good quality of life. There’s also an underlying theme of making…

By Nicola Davies A successful PPG, finally! My patient group is outstanding, and it’s not just me saying that, CQC agreed with me. Our recent ‘Outstanding’ rating is largely down to the fantastic work my Patient Participation Group has done and continues to do for our community. For a number of years, they have been working…