Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Park View Group Practice on 1 September 2016. Overall the practice is rated as good.
Our key findings across all the areas we inspected were as follows:
- The practice had strong and visible clinical and managerial leadership and governance arrangements.
- Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns and report incidents and near misses. All opportunities for learning from internal and external incidents were maximised.
- Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance. Staff had the skills, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care and treatment. The practice had a strong commitment to supporting staff training and development.
- Risks to patients were assessed and well managed. Some building assessments had not been undertaken.
- Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment. Most patients were complimentary about the staff at the practice. Patients described the GPs as caring and professional.
- Information about services and how to complain was available and easy to understand. Improvements were made to the quality of care as a result of complaints and concerns.
- Most patients said they found it easy to make an appointment with the GP and there was continuity of care, with urgent appointments available the same day.
- Easy read literature was used to invite patients with a learning disability for their annual review.
- The practice had the facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
- Staff felt supported by management and demonstrated a clear understanding of the leadership structure.
- A patient participation group was not established but the practice used an accessible electronic tablet in reception where patients could comment on the service that they had received and a Facebook page had recently been set up for the practice.
- The provider was aware of and complied with the requirements of the duty of candour.
We saw some areas of outstanding practice:
- The practice was committed to supporting patients with dementia more effectively and had undertaken a significant amount of work to improve their performance. For example, the practice had increased its dementia diagnosis rate from 55% to 81% between April 2014 and March 2015. The practice provided memory assessments and patients diagnosed with dementia had an agreed care plan in place. The practice implemented a shared protocol with the local memory clinic to provide better support locally to its patients. Reception staff were dementia friends and had received additional training in techniques for managing behaviours of people living with dementia.
The areas where the provider should make improvements are
- Implement assessments of the practice building for Legionella and asbestos.
- The clinical nursing team should attend the weekly clinical meeting to ensure they are kept up to date with clinical issues and significant event investigations.
- The planned action to develop the patient participation group should be implemented.
- Clinical protocols should be accessible to the clinical team.
- The practice manager should formalise their ‘to do’ list into a documented action plan to monitor progress in achieving its objectives.
- The practice should identify and maintain a list of patients who are also carers.
Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP)
Chief Inspector of General Practice