We carried out a review of the data available to us about Dearne Valley Group Practice on 6 July 2023. We have not found evidence that we need to carry out an inspection or reassess our rating at this stage.
This could change at any time if we receive new information. We will continue to monitor data about this service.
If you have concerns about Dearne Valley Group Practice, you can give feedback on this service.
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Dearne Valley Group Practice on 14 March 2016. Overall the practice is rated as good.
Our key findings across all the areas we inspected were as follows:
Patients said they found it difficult to speak to a receptionist by telephone. The practice manager told us this was a long standing problem and the practice had tried to resolve this in several different ways, such as introducing an automated appointment system. They were working with the owner of the building to improve telephone access and were looking into other ways of providing information to patients.
The practice was caring and staff went the extra mile for their patients. We saw three areas of outstanding practice to evidence this:
The practice and branch site both had a palliative care co-ordinator. When patients with palliative care needs had been identified, they were allocated a palliative care co-ordinator depending on which of the sites they preferred. They were then given a letter with a photograph of their palliative care co-ordinator on it and a direct telephone number. This was to enable easy access to discuss any care needs, order prescriptions or for advice. This was set up following a complaint that palliative care information could not be found quickly.
The practice had organised community events, such as a coffee morning at a local community centre to raise awareness of health and wellbeing, long term conditions and benefits advice. This had a good response and one patient told us how the advice they received that morning helped them to claim attendance allowance for an older relative. They also organised a baby first aid event with St John’s Ambulance. Both of these events were open to the whole community. The staff held a baking sale to raise money for charity and there were further events being planned for the future.
One significant event discussed a situation where the district nurses could not gain access to a house where a patient was living. One of the GPs and another member of staff investigated and emergency services were called. The patient needed urgent social care, this was arranged whilethe GP bought essential groceries. The staff made the patient comfortable and visited the following day before an urgent package of care was put in place.
The areas where the provider should make improvement are:
To develop and implement an action plan to address the problems for patients with telephone access to the surgery so that they can be assured that patients are able to contact the surgery whenever necessary.
To review the complaints policy to include documentation of responses where complaints have been responded to verbally.
Chief Inspector of General Practice