Archived: Northcroft Surgery

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection of Northcroft Surgery, Northcroft Lane, Newbury Berkshire, RG14 1BU. This was the first inspection of the practice under the new CQC comprehensive inspection approach and was undertaken to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

Overall the practice is rated as good and all domains and patient groups carrying the same rating.

Our key findings were as follows:

• The practice offered a range of appointments and patient feedback showed the practice to be responsive to meeting patient requests for appointments.

• The practice sought the views of patients and staff in planning future service development. For example patients were asked to comment on the practice move to new premises.

• The practice was clean and tidy and the risks of cross infection were reduced by operation of safe systems.

• Patients with complex care needs were involved in the preparation of their care plans.

• Longer appointments were available for patients who were vulnerable or had complex care needs.

• The practice achieved all the national targets for care and review of patients with specific long term medical conditions in 2014/15.

There were some areas of practice where the provider needs to make improvements.

The provider should:

• Share learning from significant events with secondary care providers when the incident involves care and treatment provided by more than one party.
• Take the opportunity to widen the scope of clinical audit and share outcomes from audit to further improve patient care and outcomes.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice