The Care Quality Commission has found the quality of care provided by Larwood Surgery, in Worksop, to be Outstanding following an inspection in July.
Inspectors found the practice, in Larwood Avenue, was providing a safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led service that meets the needs of the population it serves.
Under CQC’s programme of inspections, all England’s GP practices are given a rating according to whether they are safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led.
Larwood Surgery is rated Outstanding overall, Outstanding with regard to whether services were safe, effective, responsive and well-led and Good with regard to whether the service was caring.
A full report of the inspection has now been published and is available on CQC’s website.
The report on Larwood Surgery highlights a number of areas of outstanding practice, including:
- Excellent systems for ensuring learning from significant events. This learning was shared with the whole practice and staff were involved in the analysis of significant events. Events were discussed at meetings, including an annual meeting with workshops for all staff, and a six monthly newsletter, which detailed events and any action taken, was issued to staff.
- There were excellent systems for sharing information about safeguarding concerns and identifying children at risk. These included early intervention safeguarding meetings called ‘Think Family’. The practice led a pilot for these meetings and the format and principles had been rolled out to other practices in the Bassetlaw CCG area.
- A programme of continuous clinical and internal audit was used to monitor quality and to make improvements. The practice shared this learning and any developments with other local practices.
- The practice had excellent systems to manage staff training and ensure everyone completed any required training. Staff were supported to obtain a wide range of clinical and management qualifications relevant to their role.
Having identified high attendance figures from its patients at the accident and emergency department at Bassetlaw District General Hospital, which was close to the surgery, the practice developed an urgent care walk in service. This successfully reduced the number of patients attending A and E. Due to its success this was extended to another surgery in the provider’s group of practices.
Alison Holbour, Deputy Chief Inspector of General Practice and Dentistry in CQC’s North region said:
“It is clear Larwood Surgery is providing an exemplary service which is a real asset to the people living in this part of Nottinghamshire.
“We found staff fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns and report incidents and near misses and opportunities for learning from incidents were maximised. The practice used innovative methods to improve and worked with other local providers to share best practice.
“Feedback from patients was consistently positive and the practice worked closely with other organisations and the local community in planning how services were provided to ensure these met patients’ needs.
“The practice implemented suggestions for improvements and made changes to the way it delivered services as a consequence of feedback from patients and the patient participation group. It also actively reviewed complaints and how they were managed and responded to, and they made improvements as a result.
“There was a clear vision at the practice which put quality and safety as its top priority. The strategy to deliver this vision had been produced with stakeholders and was regularly reviewed and discussed with staff.
“All of this hard work pays off in making a real difference to patients – which is why we have found this practice to be Outstanding.”
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For further information, please contact Kerri James, CQC Regional Engagement Communications Officer by email kerri.james@cqc.org.uk or by phone on 07464 92 9966.
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