Archived: Marlborough Street Surgery

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We undertook a comprehensive inspection of Marlborough Street Surgery on 15 October 2014. Marlborough Street Surgery at 1 Marlborough Street, Devonport Plymouth PL1 4AE provides primary medical services to people living in the Devonport area in the city of Plymouth, Devon and there is also a branch surgery called Glendower in the Peverell area of the city. Both practices provide services to a diverse population and age group.

The practice was rated as Requiring Improvement

Our key findings were as follows:

Patient feedback from surveys, comment cards and verbal feedback was overall positive. The majority of patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in care and treatment decisions. The practice enabled patients to book appointments quickly.

There were concerns regarding the monitoring of infection control and staff knowledge of safeguarding adults and children. GPs had received safeguarding training at the appropriate level. Training was not monitored adequately and some staff did not receive all the training they needed to help them provide safe and effective care.

The practice undertook audits and reviewed any serious incidents that occurred, however we could not see evidence that all staff were made aware of any changes that had been made to improve the service.

There were areas of practice where the provider needs to make improvements.

Importantly, the provider must:

• All staff, according to their job role, must receive training updated training in safeguarding vulnerable adults and children.
• If reception staff are used as chaperones they must have received training to undertake this role.

In addition the provider should:

Clinical Governance meetings should be held more frequently and a means of relaying any discussion and/or remedial actions to all staff should be introduced and formalised.

A risk assessment regarding Legionella testing should be carried out.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice