Archived: The Schoolhouse Surgery

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

This is the report of findings from our inspection of The Schoolhouse Surgery. Our inspection was a planned comprehensive inspection, which took place on 4 December 2014. The Schoolhouse Surgery delivers services under a Primary Medical Services (PMS) contract.

The service provided by The Schoolhouse Surgery is rated as outstanding.

Our inspection showed all care and treatment was safe, effective, caring and well-led.

Our key findings were as follows:

• The practice provides safe care and treatment to its patients. The practice had systems in place to identify report and investigate any serious incidents. Patient safety was upheld and protected by all clinicians.
• The practice delivered evidenced based care and treatment which was shown to be effective through the monitoring and review of patient outcomes.
• We saw and were told by patients that the practice and staff were responsive to feedback and that patients felt privileged to be treated by clinicians at the practice
• The practice and all staff were well-led; a clear vision and strategy was in place to deliver the best possible care and treatment for patients.

We saw several areas of outstanding practice including:

• Audits were targeted and carried out in response to data or reports on clinical findings. Examples we saw of completed audit cycles showed patient outcomes were improved; rates of hospital admissions from nursing and care homes dropped significantly and the length of any patient stay in hospital was also reduced.
• GPs had a clear vision and this was shared by all staff. The partners recognised that engagement with patients, beyond time spent in the consulting room was key in getting health initiatives off the ground. GP’s encouraged families and young people to use technology to help make health and lifestyle decisions. Examples included use of applications on computers or smart phones to help calculate calorie intake, or the use of pedometers to measure the contribution community walks made to exercise needed each day. GP registrars on training placement with the practice were taught to ‘view excellence as the norm rather than the exceptional’.
• The practice included all community stakeholders in their weekly practice meetings, for example community pharmacists and managers and carers from the local domiciliary care agency. Evidence was available to demonstrate that this reduced the instance of more vulnerable patients being re-admitted to hospital care.
• GPs at the practice were committed to providing support to older patients who wished to remain at home rather than be admitted to hospital. Patients receiving palliative or end of life care were helped to make advanced decisions about their care and treatment, which were recorded. GPs were innovative in the use of technology to ensure those patients whose verbal skills were impaired by illness, could communicate their wishes.

On the basis of the findings of this inspection the provider is rated outstanding.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice