11 November 2014
During a routine inspection
Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice
We inspected this service on 11 November 2014 as part of our new comprehensive inspection programme.
The overall rating for this service is good. We found the practice to be good in the safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led domains. We found the practice provided outstanding care to older people. They provided good care to people with long term conditions, families, children and young people, working age people, people in vulnerable groups and people experiencing poor mental health.
Our key findings were:
- Performance was consistent over time and patients were kept safe because there were arrangements in place for staff to report and learn from incidents that occurred.
- Patients received evidence based assessments and care and treatment was planned and delivered to promote a good quality of life.
- Staff treated patients with respect and kindness. Patients told us that staff were caring and compassionate. They said that they had confidence and trust in the GPs and nurses they saw or spoke with.
- Services were planned and delivered to meet the needs of the patients. Patients were positive about the access to appointments and the telephone monitoring service.
- The leadership and management within the practice promoted an open and transparent culture. Staff felt able to contribute to the running of the service. The practice sought and acted on feedback from staff and patients.
We saw areas of outstanding practice including:
- The practice was found to be extremely proactive in developing strong local and international community links for the benefit of its own and other patient population groups. For example the practice had secured funding from the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) to enable extra support for patients in their own home through the ‘Care 4 me at home’ project.
However, there were also areas of practice where the provider needs to make improvements. The provider should:
- Evaluate the effectiveness of the system used to store policies and procedures to ensure staff have easy access to relevant information to support their individual roles.
- Consider ways to strengthen the risk management processes within the practice to ensure that all risks are assessed and rated, with mitigating actions recorded to reduce and manage risks, including fire safety, recruitment and electrical and water testing
Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP)
Chief Inspector of General Practice