We carried out a review of the data available to us about Fordington Surgery 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 Fordington Surgery, you can give feedback on this service.
Following our annual regulatory review of the information available to us, we inspected this service on 12 December 2019. The service was last inspected in May 2016. It was rated as good for each of the five key questions and rated good overall. This inspection looked at the following key questions; was the service providing effective, responsive and well led services for the registered patient population. We decided not to inspect whether the practice was providing safe or caring services as there was no information from the annual regulatory review which indicated there was any change in quality for these domains.
This inspection focused on the following key questions:
Because of the assurance received from our review of information, we carried forward the ratings for the following key questions:
We based our judgement of the quality of care at this service on a combination of:
We have rated this practice as good overall and good for safe, effective, responsive, caring and well led services because:
We have rated this practice as good overall and good for all population groups.
The area where the practice should make improvement are:
Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.
Dr Rosie Benneyworth BM BS BMedSci MRCGP
Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Fordington Surgery on 17 May 2016. Overall the practice is rated as good.
Our key findings across all the areas we inspected were as follows:
Practice GPs maintained an ongoing review of potentially vulnerable patients using a system which showed the up to date details of those most vulnerable. Patients identified as being potentially vulnerable were discussed at formal weekly meetings and actions agreed. For example any patient who had attended accident and emergency departments, safeguarded children, adult safeguarded patients, patients with learning disabilities, patients subject to domestic violence.
We identified areas of outstanding practice:
Patients with multiple long term conditions had been identified and were able to see a GP instead of a nurse when they attended for their flu vaccinations. This was done in order to review their complex needs in a single appointment. GPs also took this opportunity to carry out health checks across a range of other conditions for example, dementia diagnosis.
The practice had introduced an innovation to support vulnerable patients responding to their needs in a more proactive and timely way. The practice GPs maintained a dedicated time slot for one hour, four times a week whereby they contacted local care homes and either visited or invited the patient from the home into the practice. Historically patients would not have been visited until the afternoon, which meant treatment could be started in the morning, potentially avoiding an unplanned admission to hospital.
The practice had recently introduced a new computer application. It sent out a text reminder to patients to confirm the appointment, reminded them of the appointment 24 hours in advance and sent out a friends and family survey message after the appointment. This had resulted in less cancelled appointments and increased patient feedback information.
The practice’s computer system alerted GPs if a patient was also a carer. The practice had identified 3% of their patients as carers. The practice used this register to send out details of workshops which carers could attend, invited them in for annual health checks and offered signposting to relevant services. Written information was available to direct carers to the various avenues of support available to them.
Chief Inspector of General Practice
Patients were able to get an appointment promptly and had sufficient time to discuss their problems. One patient told us, 'I have no problems getting appointments, the system works very well.' Another patient said, 'I've never felt rushed, there is always enough time to discuss my problems.'
The surgery had effective arrangements to ensure cleanliness. We found that the surgery was clean. One patient told us, 'The cleanliness is excellent.' Another patient said, 'The place is spotless and its always tidy.'
The provider carried out checks on staff before they started work.
The provider regularly monitored the quality and safety of the service and made improvements when necessary.