1 December 2014
During a routine inspection
Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Belsize Priory Medical Group Practice on 1 December 2014. Overall the practice is rated as good.
Specifically, we found the practice to be good for providing safe, well-led, caring and responsive services. The practice required improvement for providing an effective service. It was also good for providing services for the provision of care to older people, those with long term conditions, working age (including those recently retires and students, those whose circumstances make them vulnerable and those experiencing poor mental health (including those with dementia). It required improvement for providing a service to families, children and young people.
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, with the exception of those relating to recruitment checks.
- 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.
- Urgent appointments were usually available on the day they were requested. However patients said that they sometimes had to wait a long time for non-urgent appointments.
- The practice had an active patient participation group (PPG).
The areas where the provider must make improvements are:
- Ensure disclosure and barring service (DBS) checks are undertaken for all staff undertaking chaperone duties;
- Ensure a programme where clinical audits are carried out periodically and improvements shown.
In addition the provider should:
- Ensure meetings are documented more fully showing actions taken;
- Ensure that significant events and incidents are discussed and learning disseminated through the practice.
- Produce a practice risk register to log both clinical and non-clinical risks to the practice and the patient population.
Professor Steve Field CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP
Chief Inspector of General Practice