The Integrated Care Partnership

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

The practice has an overall rating of good.

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at The Integrated Care Partnership on the 7 July 2015. The practice has three branch surgeries and provides personal medical services to over 32,500 patients. We did not inspect any of the branch surgeries. The Integrated Care Partnership is run by a team of 13 partner GPs. The practice is also supported by six salaried GPs, two physician associates, GP registrars, six practice nurses, four healthcare assistants, a team of receptionists, administrative staff, team leaders and a business manager.

The inspection team spoke with staff and patients and reviewed policies and procedures. The practice understood the needs of the local population and engaged effectively with other services. Specifically, we found the practice to be good for providing well-led, effective, caring and responsive services. It requires improvement for providing safe services, specifically in relation to infection control. We found the practice was delivering a good service to all its population groups.

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

• The practice had a patient participation group that took an active role in developing and improving patient services.
• Patients’ needs were assessed and care was planned and delivered in line with best practice guidance.
• Staff had received training appropriate for their roles and any further training needs had been identified and planned.
• Staff understood their responsibilities to raise concerns, and to report incidents and near misses.
• Information about safety was recorded, monitored, reviewed and addressed.

• Risks to patients were assessed and well managed
• 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.
• Most patients said they found it easy to make an appointment with the GP and that urgent appointments were available the same day.
• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.
• Staff felt supported by management.
• The practice proactively sought feedback from staff and patients, which it acted on.
• The practice had the appropriate equipment, medicines and procedures to manage foreseeable patient emergencies.
• The practice recognised the needs of its older population and had systems in place to support patients through care plans, hospital avoidance schemes and providing extra support for those patients with dementia.

However, there were also areas of practice where the provider needs to make improvements.

Importantly, the provider must:

• Ensure that cleaning equipment is stored appropriately and hygienically and monitor the levels of cleanliness throughout the practice. Ensure that after infection control audits, areas of non-compliance are followed up and action plans created to ensure compliance. Ensure that a risk assessment for legionella is completed.

In addition the provider should:

• Follow-up where staff have failed to complete training in the required timeframe.
• Improve the quality of record keeping, to ensure that actions from significant events and complaints are clearly recorded as having been disseminated to staff.
• Review the recruitment policy to ensure that information required under the Health and Social Care Act – schedule 3 is clearly explained.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice