The Safety KLOE has arguably undergone the most change in the new inspection regime – and more than likely reflects the results from the first round of inspections where safety issues were not found to be either well-applied or consistent. Safety here applies to patients and service users and as would be expected, the issues…

In part two of our series looking at CQC inspection key lines of enquiries (KLOEs), we looked generally at the KLOE that deals with Practice Leadership. While the PM may not necessarily be the leader, there is a great deal of leadership work that falls to most of us. Casting minds back to 2004 and…

Leadership is defined in many ways. The Oxford Dictionary is little help as it merely says, “The action of leading a group of people or an organisation,” while Forbes defines it as being, “a process of social influence, which maximises the efforts of others, towards the achievement of a goal”. One of the most influential…

By Robert Campbell “Audit is the process of critically and systematically assessing our own professional activities with a commitment to improving personal performance and ultimately the quality and/or cost-effectiveness of patient care” Although I’d normally avoid clinical audits like the plague, there are ways in which practice managers and their staff can help doctors carry…

By now, it’s safe to assume that all practice managers know what a KLOE is. However, when it comes to dealing with the CQC, the real test is whether what you believe it means corresponds with what your CQC Inspection Team believes it is. From experience, the gap between the two can be a significant…

By Robert Campbell Some 20,000 GPs were thought to be working as locums in 2016 (National Association of Salaried GPs). In 2016, there were 41,985 GPs in England working in 7,613 practices. The number of salaried GPs has increased by 400% in the last decade (British Medical Association). There are thought to be some 20,000…

Receptionists often get short shrift from patients and even their colleagues on occasion. In fact, an article in the press entitled ‘March of the GP receptionist’ stated that “Patients are upset at having to discuss personal health matters with a receptionist, in earshot of the waiting room”. But receptionists are only trying to do their…