CQC Pre-Inspection - Supportive Information
Notification of a CQC inspection call or visit can raise high levels of stress in all staff! It is an opportunity for the practice to show how well they are working as a team and the quality of care they are providing for their practice population.
TOP TIPS
With our grateful thanks to Cleveland LMC who have kindly gven permission for us to link to their resources on this topic.
There are documents for the following headings
- Top Tips Safe Key Question
- Top Tips Effective Key Question
- Top Tips Caring Key Question
- Top Tips Responsive Key Question
- Top Tips Well Led Key Question
They have been collated by a member of their team who was previoulsy a CQC Inspector. We would point out that Cleveland LMC advise that these are due to be updated in due course in line with CQC's Single Assessment Framework.
Clinical Searches - July 2022 Update for practices in preparation for potential future CQC inspections.
There has been an updated CQC YouTube presentation on the remote searches carried out by the CQC GP SPA during a practice inspection.
- Please follow this link for the presentation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGshX-w98yU
The CQC slide set that details the clinical searches can be downloaded here. Slides 20-26 have the clinical detail around the searches.
These clinical searches are now routinely used when carrying out inspections of GP practices. They were designed to focus on areas of clinical importance, reflecting the profession’s agreed shared view of quality and to contribute to a consistent regulatory approach.
CQC also say that their National Professional Advisor has also provided the following information which you may find helpful.
The Specialist Pharmacy Service (SPS) who recommend monitoring intervals for all drugs, returned to normal intervals from Feb 22: Since February 2022 SPS now recommend that monitoring can proceed as normal using their medicines monitoring guidance. This is based on the usual shorter BNF and NICE CKS monitoring intervals.
The content and focus of the remote clinical searches have been agreed by the RCGP and the BMA. It represents a reasonable approach to assessing some important features of safe and effective health care delivery. The searches will be regularly reviewed and updated. This will reflect changes to guidance, new alerts or areas that are considered important for additional review.
The attached list was the requested information for CQC prior to an inspection in a practice in HIOW recently. This list is an example and practices shouldn’t assume that they will automatically be asked to provide exactly the same information.
You can find more information on how these searches have been constructed, how to download, along with FAQ on the Ardens website available from June 2022.
There are specific videos on using these searches in the various GP computer systems.
CQC also have a slide set from their webinar on their regulatory model.
Clinical system search detail can also be seen within CQC GP mythbuster 12
Long term condition management and monitoring
We have asked CQC about their expectation regarding long-term conditions management and monitoring of patients prescribed high risk medicines.
They have given the following update: -
In relation to high risk medicines, we look at this under our KLOE S4. How does the provider ensure the proper and safe use of medicines, where the service is responsible?
In accordance with General Medical Council (GMC) guidance ‘Good practice in prescribing and managing medicines and devices (updated April 2021)’, our expectation is that before issuing a prescription (including a repeat one) we expect to see prescribers review the monitoring or know that it has been completed, and can access information showing it remains safe for the patient to receive the medicines.
Practice Access Data
As patient access is a topic raised on a number of occasions, we thought is might be useful to have some data to hand to offer to CQC in preparation for a visit/inspection. We have put together a short checklist. It is by no means exhaustive or compulsory in any way, so please don't feel you have to use this. It is simply a checklist you might find useful. Click on the image below to download a copy.
CQC Podcast
This Podcast Recording taken from the PM Update webinar on 3rd August 2022 focused on CQC. The attached list was the requested information for CQC prior to an inspection in a practice in HIOW recently. This list is an example and practices shouldn’t assume that they will automatically be asked to provide exactly the same information.
You can listen to further CQC podcasts here
