Archived: Church End Medical Centre

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Church End Medical Centre  on 27 May 2016. Overall the practice is rated as good.

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

• There was an open and transparent approach to safety and an effective system in place for reporting and recording significant events. The practice was aware of and complied with the requirements of the duty of candour.
• Risks to patients were assessed and well managed.
• Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance. The practice had prioritised self care and health promotion and was achieving well in these areas.
• Staff had been trained and had the skills, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care and treatment. The clinical team met weekly with a strong emphasis on learning.
• Patients said they were treated with kindness, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment. The practice tended to score below others on the national GP patient survey however.
• 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.
• Patients said they sometimes found it difficult to make an appointment when they wanted one or with a named GP, but urgent appointments were available the same day. The practice had recently introduced a walk-in session every Friday to improve access.
• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
• Leaders had an inspiring shared purpose to respond to patients needs and to strive to deliver and motivate staff to succeed. The practice actively engaged with other organisations and professionals to achieve these aims.
• The practice proactively sought feedback from staff and patients, which it acted on.

We saw two areas of outstanding practice:

• The practice had worked closely with a nearby nursing home, for example encouraging the nursing staff to develop competencies and skills such as safe catheterisation. The practice had directly trained nursing home staff on some aspects of care. As a result, the number of ambulance call outs and A&E admissions from the home had decreased by almost 70%.
• The practice had developed its service to meet the needs of patients with sickle cell disease in the practice population and to reduce unplanned hospital admissions. The practice screened at risk groups and routinely provided antibiotic and folic acid prophylactic treatment. Patients were called for annual checks. The practice checked that patients had received all required immunisations. The doctors were aware of the importance of adequate repeat prescribing of analgesics for these patients. The practice had developed its own electronic template for sickle cell disease which had been adopted by the regional research hub and shared with all practices with a high population prevalence of sickle cell disease.

The areas where the provider should make improvement are:

• The practice should continue to monitor and improve patient experience in relation to the telephone system and obtaining non-urgent appointments within a reasonable timeframe. 
• The practice should monitor patient waits in the surgery and make improvements where appropriate.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice