Gosforth Memorial Medical Centre

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Gosforth Memorial Medical Centre on 15 March 2016. Overall the practice is rated as outstanding.

Our key findings were as follows:

• Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance.
• Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns and report incidents and near misses. All opportunities for learning from internal and external incidents were maximised.
• 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.
• Patients said they were able to get an appointment with a GP when they needed one, with urgent appointments available the same day.
• Extended hours surgeries were offered between 6.30pm and 7.30pm every Monday and Wednesday evening.
• Outcomes for patients with long term conditions were consistently better than national averages.
• Feedback from patients was overwhelmingly positive and the practice achieved high scores in the National GP Patient Survey.
• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
• There was a clear leadership structure in place and staff felt supported by management. The practice proactively sought feedback from staff and patients, which they acted on.

• Staff throughout the practice worked well together as a team.

We saw several areas of outstanding practice including:

• The practice engaged with a group of patients with learning disabilities to carry out a ‘health quality check’ of the practice. A team of health quality checkers visited the practice, looked at the premises and spoke with staff. The health checkers commented positively on the practice. One of the healthcare assistants was the first point of contact for patients on the learning disability register. They had built up a rapport with patients and their carers. As a result of this work, 35 out of 36 patients had received their annual health check during the previous 12 months.

• The practice was the preferred practice for patients who lived in a local community based home for patients with chronic mental illness (13 patients). Services were tailored to meet those patients’ individual needs. We were told about several examples of how staff from the practice positively engaged with the patients and had built up relationships. This had resulted in staff being able to carry out routine checks for the patients, which in turn had resulted in a number of new diagnoses, including diabetes and skin problems, which were subsequently addressed by the practice.

• The practice had taken action to ensure patients over the age of 75, who had not been diagnosed with a long term condition, and therefore had not received regular checks, were offered an appointment for a health check. A search of patient records was undertaken to identify those patients. The patients were contacted and offered a health check. The practice carried out a review of the outcomes; this showed that 96 patients were offered a check, 79 patients attended and from this there were 27 new diagnoses or issues identified, for which the practice developed treatment plans.

However, there was also an area of practice where the provider needs to make improvements.

The provider should:

• Replace the carpet in the nurse’s consultation room with flooring suitable for a clinical environment.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP 

Chief Inspector of General Practice