Cheriton Bishop & Teign Valley Practice

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Cheriton Bishop & Teign Valley Practice on 15 July 2015. Overall the practice is rated as outstanding.

Specifically, we found the practice to be outstanding for providing responsive and caring services. It was good for being safe, effective and well led. It was outstanding for all six population groups.

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

• Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns and report incidents and near misses. All opportunities for learning from internal and external incidents were maximised.
• Patients said they were treated with compassion, dignity and respect and were involved in decisions about their treatment. Information was provided to help patients understand the care available to them.
• Patients’ needs were assessed and care was planned and delivered following current guidance. Staff had received training appropriate to their roles and any further training needs had been identified and planned.
• The practice worked closely with other organisations, charities and with the local community in planning how services were provided, to ensure that they meet patient need.

• The practice had implemented improvements and made changes to the way it delivered services as a consequence of feedback from patients and from the patient participation group (PPG).

• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
• Information about how to complain was available and easy to understand
• The practice had a clear vision which had quality and safety as the top priorities. A business plan was in place, this was monitored regularly and reviewed and discussed with all staff. High standards were promoted and owned by all practice staff with evidence of team working across all roles.

We saw several areas of outstanding practice including:

Unannounced role play training had been additionally provided for staff to practice and review their response and skills when dealing with emergencies.

The practice reached out to the community and supported and worked in partnership with a local charitable community support service (ACORN). The practice offered office space and resources to this charity who provided transport and prescription delivery in a rural area and offered services such as lunch clubs, coffee mornings and trips to the supermarket which reduced social isolation. The practice invited the coordinator of Acorn to the monthly multidisciplinary team meetings where the pastoral care, equipment provision and monitoring of vulnerable patients was coordinated.

The practice was exceptionally caring. Patients said that staff went the extra mile and the care they received exceeded their expectations, this was in line with the practice track record of consistently being above national average data scores for patient care and treatment. Patients repeatedly referred to the service as being caring, respectful, exceptional, efficient and outstanding and shared many examples which supported that staff had gone above and beyond what was expected.

Patients described the practice as being very responsive to their needs. Services were tailored to meet the needs of patients and were delivered in a way to ensure flexibility, choice and continuity of care. This responsive service had resulted in excellent survey results and significantly lower Accident and Emergency attendance rates.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice