The Care Quality Commission
  • Doctor
  • GP practice

Dawlish Medical Group Also known as Barton Surgery

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

The Barton Surgery, Barton Terrace, Dawlish, Devon, EX7 9QH (01626) 888877

Provided and run by:
Dawlish Medical Group

All Inspections

11/12/2019

During an inspection looking at part of the service

Following our annual regulatory review of the information available to us, we inspected this service on 11 December 2019. The service was last inspected in December 2015. It was rated as good for providing safe, effective, caring and responsive services. It was rated as outstanding for well-led services and rated good overall. This inspection looked at the following key questions; was the service providing effective, responsive and well led services for the registered patient population. We decided not to inspect whether the practice was providing safe or caring services as there was no information from the annual regulatory review which indicated there was any change in quality for these domains.

This inspection focused on the following key questions:

  • Are services effective?
  • Are services responsive?
  • Are services well led?

Because of the assurance received from our review of information, we carried forward the ratings for the following key questions:

  • Are services safe? (Good)
  • Are services caring? (Good)

We based our judgement of the quality of care at this service on a combination of:

  • what we found when we inspected
  • information from our ongoing monitoring of data about services and
  • information from the provider, patients, the public and other organisations.

We have rated this practice as good overall and good for safe, effective, responsive, caring and well-led services because:

  • The practice provided care in a way that kept patients safe and protected them from avoidable harm.
  • Patients received effective care and treatment that met their needs.
  • Services were tailored to meet the needs of individual patients. They were delivered in a flexible way that ensured choice and continuity of care.The way the practice was led and managed promoted the delivery of high-quality, person-centre care.
  • Governance systems were effective and regularly reviewed.
  • The practice was engaged in local initiatives and worked alongside partners in the local healthcare system.

We have rated this practice as good overall and good for all population groups.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

  • Implement actions to improve uptake for the cervical screening programme to meet the national target of 80%.

We saw one area of outstanding practice

  • The practice employed a social prescriber who was able to offer 40minute appointments and refer patients to a very wide range of local support organisations.

Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.

Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP

Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care

16 December 2015

During a routine inspection

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Dawlish Medical Centre on 16 December 2015. Overall the practice is rated as good.

Our key findings across all the areas we inspected were as follows:

  • 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.

  • The practice used innovative and proactive methods to improve patient outcomes, working with other local providers to share best practice. The practice was a sessional research practice which meant they not only identified patients for research programmes but collected data for trials.

  • Feedback from patients about their care was consistently and strongly positive.

  • The practice worked closely with other organisations and with the local community in planning how services were provided to ensure that they meet people’s needs.

  • The practice implemented suggestions for improvements and made changes to the way it delivered services as a consequence of feedback from patients and from the patient participation group. Feedback about patients not being able to get through on the telephone prompted an increase of reception staff at peak times of the day.
  • The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
  • Information about how to complain was available and easy to understand
  • The practice had a clear vision which had 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.

We saw several areas of outstanding practice including:

  • A systematic approach was taken to working with other organisations to improve care outcomes, tackle health inequalities and obtain best value for money. The daily work at the local community hospital not only provided continuity of care for patients, but also reduced hospital stay. For example, the target for average length of stay for the community hospital patients was 10 days and the actual average length of stay for patients was 6.7 days. Healthcare professionals from the community hospital told us that GPs often went above and beyond what was expected including the GPs mobile phone numbers for use during waking hours. Patient thank you cards also reflected this view point.

  • The practice provided a GP service to patients who live at a local specialist medium secure mental health hospital. One of the GPs with a special interest in mental health worked with the community mental health team and hospital clinicians either on the hospital site or at the surgery.

  • Results for cervical screening were above the national average. This was achieved using a system of offering telephone reminders for patients who did not attend for their cervical screening test. The practice also had a failsafe system for ensuring results were received for every sample sent as part of the cervical screening programme. 

However there were areas of practice where the provider should make improvements:

Ensure a system is in place to include doctors bags on the programme of checking and calibration of clinical equipment.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

7 July 2014

During a routine inspection

Barton Surgery (Dawlish Medical Practice) provides primary medical services to patients living in Dawlish, Dawlish Warren and the surrounding areas. The practice in Dawlish has one small branch surgery in the holiday resort of Dawlish Warren where up to 3,500 patients and holiday-makers are seen per year. At the time of our inspection there were approximately 13,000 patients registered at the practice.

The practice has a team of nine GPs meeting patients’ needs. Six GPs are partners, meaning they hold managerial and financial responsibility for running the practice. There are three salaried GPs. In addition there are three registered nurses and three health care assistants. Patients who use the practice have access to community staff including district nurses, community psychiatric nurses, health visitors, physiotherapists, speech therapists, counsellors, podiatrists and midwives.

Patients spoke very positively about the staff employed at the practice and the level of care they received.  Patients told us they felt that the practice was safe. They told us that care was given to them in accordance with their wishes and opportunities were given for informed decision making. Patients told us they felt the practice was responsive to their needs. For example, patients said that an urgent appointment could always be obtained on the day they contacted the practice and they could usually see their named GP for non-urgent visits. This reflected  the information provided on the practice website and within the practice welcome pack.

Patients told us about their experiences of the practice. Their responses were positive from patients we spoke to on the day, in 26 of the comment cards left for us and within the practice’s own patient survey 2012/13.

There was evidence that learning from incidents, significant events and investigations took place and appropriate changes were implemented to improve the practice and patient experiences.

The practice was effective in the way it provided care to patients. In addition to the evidence obtained by our inspection team, the supporting data and documentation we reviewed about the practice demonstrated the practice performed very well when compared with all other practices within the clinical commissioning group (CCG) area. 

We saw the practice was well led, with a clear leadership structure in operation. The staff we spoke with spoke highly of the management within the practice and told us they felt supported in their roles. Supporting information reviewed during our inspection demonstrated the practice had appropriate systems in place that regularly monitored the safety and effectiveness of the care provided.