This practice is rated as Good overall. (No previous inspection)
The key questions are rated as:
Are services safe? – Good
Are services effective? – Good
Are services caring? – Good
Are services responsive? – Good
Are services well-led? - Good
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at The Wembley Practice as part of our inspection programme.
At this inspection we found:
- The practice had clear systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. When incidents did happen, the practice learned from them and improved their processes.
- The practice routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided. It ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence- based guidelines.
- Staff involved and treated patients with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
- Patients found the appointment system easy to use and reported that they were able to access care when they needed it.
- There was a strong focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels of the organisation. The practice used innovative and proactive methods to assure effective communications across the organisation. For example, the provider had initiated an online networking tool to share learning, information, ideas including social events and peer support. The provider was using this online tool to monitor the performance and utilising the resources, such as managing staffing levels when the demand increased for appointments.
- The provider sent monthly staff newsletters. This provided them with any information about the practice including clinical updates, staffing matters, training opportunities and any changes within the practice group.
- Staff had access to a suite of bespoke training materials to cover the scope of their work and meet their learning needs. This included access to a corporate learning and development portfolio featuring face-to-face, web-based and blended training programs tailored for each staff role. For example, fortnightly web-based training for healthcare assistants and nurses’ development support, bi-monthly development for practice management, fortnightly consultant led development program for clinicians and monthly face-to-face training for the physician associate and pharmacist.
- The practice used innovative and proactive methods to improve patient outcomes and worked with other local and national healthcare providers to share best practice. This included arranged events such as a health and wellness day and a diabetes prevention week.
- An interactive online messaging system, ‘message my GP’ was available for patients to direct non-urgent queries to a GP, with a response turnaround of up to 48 hours.
- The practice used information technology systems to monitor and improve the quality of care. The electronic dashboard used across the provider group was an effective tool for understanding the practice’s comparative performance across a range of clinical indicators and had provided access to bespoke searches relevant to medicines management and effective care. This enabled the practice to readily identify when follow up tests and screening were due in the management of patients with long term conditions and those experiencing poor mental health.
- The practice had strong visible and clinical managerial leadership and governance arrangements.
We saw an area of outstanding practice:
- The provider worked in collaboration with a social enterprise and set up a website facility called ‘Talking from the heart’, which was aimed at patients from ethnic minorities suffering from mental health conditions. This was set up due to the stigma surrounding mental health and communication problems in some communities, which often meant patients did not seek support. In collaboration with several ethnic minority groups and mental health professionals, they developed four short films in three spoken languages, which could be used by primary care practitioners with their patients or with community groups. The films combined medical and religious advice and addressed stigma.
The areas where the provider should make improvements are:
- Take action to ensure the practice safeguarding leads are recorded clearly in all the safeguarding policies.
- Monitor and continuously review the system in place for checking vaccine fridge temperatures.
- Continue to monitor and improve on child immunisation uptake.
- Continue to monitor and improve the uptake for cervical, bowel and breast cancer screening.
- Review exception reporting and take appropriate action where progress is not achieved as expected.
Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP
Chief Inspector of General Practice