Archived: Newmarket Road Surgery

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Newmarket Road Surgery on 20 October 2015. The overall rating for this practice is good. Specifically, we found the practice to be good for providing safe, effective, caring and well led services. It was also good for being responsive.

It was good for providing services for the care experienced by older people, by people with long term conditions and by families, children and young people. Working age people, those in vulnerable circumstances and people experiencing poor mental health also received good care. Our key findings across all the areas we inspected were as follows:

• The practice was a friendly and caring practice that addressed patients’ needs and it worked in partnership with other health and social care services to deliver individualised care.

• Patients’ needs were assessed and care was planned and delivered following best practice guidance.

• Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and they were involved in their care and decisions about their treatment.

• Information about services and how to complain was available and easy to understand.

• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.

• There was a clear leadership structure and staff felt supported by management.

We saw several areas of area of outstanding practice:

• The practice used dementia friendly signs and images throughout the premises.

• One of the GP partners, who was on long term sick, was present on the day of the inspection to spend time with our advisors and answer any questions we had. This reflected the care and interest this GP, and other staff invested in their practice.

• Staff commented on good training and development opportunities and felt well supported by the GPs and management.

However there were areas of practice where the provider needs to make improvements. Importantly the provider should:

• Undertake regular fire drills.

• Carry out risk assessments to ensure a safe practice environment is maintained.

• Effectively record audit procedures for infection prevention and control.

• Improve complaint recording. When we reviewed the significant events we noticed that there were some incidents recorded that could have been logged as a complaint but weren’t.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice