Air Balloon Surgery

Updated 6 November 2018

The provider for the service is Air Balloon Surgery, which has one location situated at Kenn Road, St George, Bristol BS5 7PD. The location is also known as Air Balloon Surgery. The provider is registered to provide the following regulated activities:

Diagnostic and screening procedures

Family planning

Treatment of disease, disorder and injury.

Air Balloon Surgery has approximately 13,500 patients registered with the practice.

There are two partners, who are both male; and eight associate GPs who are all female. The practice has eight practice nurses, a phlebotomist, a specialist mental health nurse and two healthcare assistants. Clinicians are supported by a practice manager and a team of reception and administrative staff.

The practice population is predominantly White British with an age distribution of male and female patients predominantly in the working age population group. About 5% of patients who have stated their ethnicity as non-white ethnic groups. The patients come from a range of income categories with an average for the practice being in the fifth most deprived category. One being the most deprived and ten being the least deprived. The practice has a higher than average number of patients over the age of 65 years and about 10% of patients are over the age of 75 years with about 16.5% under the age of 15 years.

The practice has opted out of providing out-of-hours services to their own patients. This service is provided by BrisDoc and patients are directed to this service by the practice during out of hours. BrisDoc is also contracted to support the practice during normal working hours to provide urgent home visits to patients requiring a GP visit when the practice’s GPs are providing appointments to patients.

We inspected the only location:

Kenn Road

St George

Bristol

BS5 7PD

Updated 6 November 2018

This practice is rated as Good overall. (Previous rating March 2015 – Good)

The key questions at this inspection are rated as:

Are services safe? – Good

Are services effective? – Good

Are services caring? – Good

Are services responsive? – Good

Are services well-led? – Good

We carried out an announced comprehensive at Air Balloon Surgery on 14 June 2018, as part of our inspection programme.

At this inspection we found:

• The practice had clear systems to manage risk so that safety incidents were less likely to happen. When incidents did happen, the practice learned from them and improved their processes.
• The practice routinely reviewed the effectiveness and appropriateness of the care it provided. It ensured that care and treatment was delivered according to evidence- based guidelines.
• Staff involved and treated patients with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
• Patients found the appointment system easy to use and reported that they were able to access care when they needed it.
• There was a strong focus on continuous learning and improvement at all levels of the organisation.
• At out inspection in March 2015 we recommended that the provider should review the processes for recalibrating equipment to include equipment held in individual GPs bags. Also review care plans for patients with a diagnosis of a dementia to ensure they are all up to date; and review the confidentiality of conversations taking place in the top floor consultation rooms. All these areas had been addressed and improvements put in place.

We saw one area of outstanding practice:

The practice had employed a mental health nurse to improve access with mental health needs by providing support in areas such as: on the day urgent appointments; comprehensive reviews of care plans; and ongoing monitoring of compliance with medicines.

The areas where the provider should make improvements are:

• Review arrangements to make sure that all relevant agencies are correctly notified when a significant event occurs, particularly if it relates to safeguarding.
• The practice did not have an arrangement in place to search patient records to identify overdue screening, to enable them to contact the patient to remind them.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP

Chief Inspector of General Practice

Please refer to the detailed report and the evidence tables for further information.

Updated 6 November 2018

Updated 6 November 2018

Updated 6 November 2018

Updated 6 November 2018

Updated 6 November 2018

Updated 6 November 2018