We carried out a review of the data available to us about The Dunstan Partnership 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 The Dunstan Partnership, you can give feedback on this service.
We carried out an announced inspection at The Dunstan Partnership on 11 July 2022. Overall, the practice is rated as good, with the following key question ratings:
Safe - Good
Effective - Good
Caring - Good (rating awarded at the inspection 13 November 2018).
Responsive - Good (rating awarded at the inspection 13 November 2018).
Well-led - Good
Our previous inspection was on 13 November 2018, and the practice had been rated good overall and for all key questions.
The full reports for previous inspections can be found by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for The Dunstan Partnership on our website at www.cqc.org.uk
Why we carried out this inspection
We undertook this inspection as part of a random selection of services rated Good and Outstanding to test the reliability of our new monitoring approach. This inspection was a focused inspection looking at the key questions Safe, Effective and Well-led.
How we carried out the inspection/review
Throughout the pandemic CQC has continued to regulate and respond to risk. However, taking into account the circumstances arising as a result of the pandemic, and in order to reduce risk, we have conducted our inspections differently.
This inspection was carried out in a way which enabled us to spend a minimum amount of time on site. This was with consent from the provider and in line with all data protection and information governance requirements.
This included:
Our findings
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 as good in all key questions
We found that:
Although there were no breaches of regulation, the provider should:
Details of our findings and the evidence supporting our ratings are set out in the evidence tables.
Dr Sean O’Kelly BSc MB ChB MSc DCH FRCA
Chief Inspector of Hospitals and Interim Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services
This practice is rated as Good overall. (Previous rating December 2014 – 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 inspection at The Dunstan Partnership on 13 November 2018 as part of our inspection programme.
At this inspection we found:
We saw one area of outstanding practice:
The practice had found that patients with long term conditions often contacted out of hours services during the evening and at weekends more frequently. A GP now makes a courtesy call to the patient on a Friday afternoon to see if they had any specific needs that required attention before the weekend. This had reduced the need for those patients to contact the out of hours service.
Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP
Chief Inspector of General Practice
The Dunstan Partnership was inspected on the 4 December 2014.This was a comprehensive inspection.
We rated The Dunstan Partnership as Outstanding in relation to being responsive and good in relation to being safe, effective, caring, and well-led.
Our key findings were as follows:
Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns, and report incidents and near misses. Systems were in place to manage medicines and prescriptions safely and for managing infection prevention and control.
The practice had systems in place to ensure best practice was followed. This was to ensure that people’s care, treatment and support achieved good outcomes and was based on the best available evidence.
Information we received from patients reflected that practice staff interacted with them in a positive and empathetic way. They told us that they were treated with respect, always in a polite manner and as an individual.
Patients spoke positively in respect of accessing services at the practice. A system was in place for patients who required urgent appointments to be seen the same day.
We saw areas of outstanding practice including;
GPs personally telephoned all patients identified as “at risk of hospital admission” if they had been admitted and then discharged from hospital to conduct an initial post discharge review as soon as possible. The purpose of this was to initiate speedy appropriate action to prevent the patient being re-admitted to hospital if possible.
The practice had achieved the ‘Pride in practice gold award’ (in March 2014) to celebrate their dedication to delivering an excellent service to all patients. Pride in Practice is a quality assurance support service provided by The Lesbian & Gay Foundation to GP practices to support improvements in health outcomes for their lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) patients, as well as strengthen their engagement with, and understanding of LGB people.
To improve patient access the practice was open from 7am until 7.30pm Monday to Friday. These hours of access were particularly helpful to patients who work.
The continuing development of staff skills, competence and knowledge was recognised as integral to ensuring high-quality care. Staff were proactively supported to acquire new skills and share best practice. Staff training records and discussions with staff demonstrated that all grades of staff were actively encouraged to access regular training to enable them to develop professionally and meet the needs of patients effectively.
Chief Inspector of General Practice