Archived: Trinity Health

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Trinity Health, New Chapel Surgery, High Street, Long Crendon, Aylesbury, HP18 9AF on 7 October 2015. Overall the practice is rated as good.

Specifically, we found the practice was good for providing safe, effective, responsive, caring and well led services. The population groups are rated as good for the patients registered at the practice.

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

• Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns, and to report incidents and near misses. The majority of information about safety was recorded, monitored and reviewed.
• Risks to patients were assessed and well managed. Fire and legionella risk assessments had been carried out recently and the practice was in the process of implementing the action plans arising from these assessments.
• Data showed positive patient outcomes from care and treatment provided. Audits had been carried out and we saw evidence that audits were driving improvement in patient outcomes.
• Patients’ needs were assessed and care was planned and delivered following best practice guidance. Staff had received training appropriate to their roles and any further training needs had been identified and planned.
• Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in decisions about their care and treatment.
• Information about services and how to complain was available and easy to understand.
• Urgent appointments were available on the day they were requested. However patients said that they sometimes had to wait for non-urgent appointments with a named GP.
• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs. However, the waiting area was congested and there was no low level desk at the front reception.

• There was a clear leadership structure and staff felt supported by management. The practice proactively sought feedback from staff and patients, which it acted on.

We saw one area of outstanding practice including:

• Innovative treatment has been developed such as, a live well project involving an in-house psychologist providing training and support to the nurses conducting reviews to improve consultation skills and provide health empowerment to the patients. This project has improved the outcomes for patients with long term conditions.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Ensure repairs are carried out to the faulty automatic door at the main entrance.
• Ensure an induction pack is available to locum and trainee GPs.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice