The UK’s Care Quality Commission (CQC) published 94 new reports on the quality of care provided by general practitioner (GP) practices following recent inspections under a new programme of inspections in which all of England’s GP practices are being given a rating according to whether they are safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led.
The Chief Inspector of General Practice found 75 of the practices to be good, 16 to require improvement, and two to be inadequate.
GP practices receive a rating following an inspection by specialist teams including GPs, practice nurses, practice managers and experts by experience – that is, people with personal experience of using, or caring for someone who uses, the type of services being inspected.
Steve Field, Chief Inspector of General Practice said that after reporting on more than 6,000 inspections most care is good, with 200 practices rated outstanding. “That means that over one million patients currently receive care from practices which we have rated outstanding. What’s enormously encouraging is that our inspections are driving improvement – 90 per cent of practices that we have re-inspected have improved since the first inspection,” Field said.
“However, we still see evidence of too much poor care. Since we began inspecting GP practices in October 2014 we have found over 200 practices to be inadequate. While this is a minority, this still amounts to over half a million patients who were not receiving the basic standards of care that they should be able to expect from their GP practice,” said Field.
Access all the reports here:
Receive the Funding Newswire each Tuesday, our Policy Bulletin each Thursday, and news about bridging Europe’s east-west innovation gap twice a month in The Widening. 
A unique international forum for public research organisations and companies to connect their external engagement with strategic interests around their R&D system.
