Archived: Dr B Newmarch and Partner Also known as Victoria Gate Surgery

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Victoria Gate Surgery on 8 May 2015. Overall the practice is rated as good.

Specifically, we found the practice to be good for providing safe, well-led, effective, caring and responsive services. It was also good for providing services for patients with long term conditions, families, children and young people, working age people (including those recently retired and students), people whose circumstances may make them vulnerable and people experiencing poor mental health (including people with dementia).

Our key findings across all the areas we inspected were as follows:

• Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns, and to report incidents and near misses. Information about safety was recorded, monitored, appropriately reviewed and addressed.
• Risks to patients were assessed and well managed.
• Patients’ needs were assessed and care was planned and delivered following best practice guidance. Staff had received training appropriate to their roles and any further training needs had been identified and planned.
• Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect by all staff 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 found it easy to make an appointment with a named GP and that there was continuity of care, with urgent and triage appointments available the same day.
• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
• There was a clear leadership structure and staff felt supported by management. The practice proactively sought feedback from staff and patients, which it acted on.

We saw areas of outstanding practice:

• The practice had identified an issue caused by some patients repeatedly losing or claiming their prescriptions had been stolen. To address this issue the practice met with staff from the local homeless hostel and the police to develop a strategy to manage the problem. This approach had considerably reduced the incidents of claimed lost or stolen prescriptions.
• All patients had access to 15 minute appointments, with longer appointments available for those that required more time. Patients with a learning disability had their medicines reviewed at least three times a year and more often if they had complex needs. The Somerset drug and alcohol service provided appointments once a fortnight for vulnerable patients in conjunction with GPs in the practice.
• The practice had developed an innovative approach to support vulnerable patients with chaotic lifestyles who required Med 3 sick notes to access benefits. They had identified lost sick notes caused delays in accessing benefits which subsequently impacted on patients’ health. The practice established an arrangement with the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) whereby the sick notes were emailed directly to the DWP.

However there was an area of practice where the provider could make improvements.

Importantly the provider should

• Review the process for recording legionella testing.

Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP

Chief Inspector of General Practice