Archived: Dr Richard Hirson

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Manea Surgery on 14 July 2015. The overall rating for this practice is good. We found the practice to be good for providing safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led services. The quality of care experienced by older people, by people with long term conditions and by families, children and young people is good. Working age people, those in vulnerable circumstances and people experiencing poor mental health also receive good quality care. Our key findings across all the areas we inspected were as follows:

• The practice was a friendly, caring and responsive practice that addressed patients’ needs and that worked in partnership with other health and social care services to deliver individualised care.
• The premises were clean and tidy.
• Patients’ needs were assessed and care was planned and delivered following best practice guidance.
• Patients had their needs assessed in line with current guidance and the practice had a holistic approach to patient care. The practice promoted health education to empower patients to live healthier lives.
• Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.
• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs. Where the practice had highlighted the need for improvement of the premises an action plan had been implemented.
• The staff worked well together as a team.

We saw one area of area of outstanding practice:

• The lead GP actively engaged with the local community which had led to the implementation of several community initiatives such as walking groups, bowling groups and social gatherings. The lead GP also provided anticipatory home visits to older patients in the community and provided us with examples where they had organised community events and combined these with vaccination or health check awareness for patients.

However there was one area of practice where the provider needs to make improvements. Importantly the provider should:

• Improve the arrangements for undertaking appraisals of staff.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice